With a record 1 in 8 Americans now receiving food stamps I couldn’t help but share this ingenious little find on Google Maps: A Food Rescue Map! I’ve seen walking tours and other touristy maps on Google but this is a real gem. This Food Rescue Map shows 18 spots in New York City where one can go and find some really good food for free. It appears to have been written by a local Freegan in my neighborhood. Here’s the entry on Trader Joe’s:
Everything you’ve heard is true! I couldn’t believe it till I saw it for myself, but there are SEVERAL dumpsters full of an incredible variety of regular and specialty items, including fancy oils and Earth Balance and organic breads and produce and everything you can find inside!
They put the dumpsters out around 11pm and pick up is after midnight (please update if you have more accurate information). They don’t put anything out on Saturday nights.
Some of the entries, like the one for Whole Foods, offers some tips of advice for newbies. Another entry for the Magic Juice Dumpster warns:
…it is highly advisable that you are taken here by someone that has already done this (it can be dangerous/confusing).
The authors of this map are no doubt the same folks over at Surreal Estate who bring us the Bushwick chapter of Food Not Bombs, where every Thursday at 1:00pm at Maria Hernandez Park they have a food share. In their words:
Bushwick Food Not Bombs like all chapters is all-volunteer run, has no formal leaders and strives to include everyone in its decision making process.
We use food that would otherwise be thrown out and distributes it back to the community as take home groceries and/or fresh hot vegetarian/vegan meals to bring awareness to the waste created by capitalist, consumer driven societies, like the United States and to emphasize the environmental and health benefits a vegetarian lifestyle brings.
Food Not Bombs also shares food in outside in public spaces to anyone without restriction as an act of reclaiming public space.
In these tough times this Food Rescue Map is a great way to utilize Google Maps. The amount of food that gets wasted every day in this country would make any sane person sick. Food Not Bombs does a great job of raising people’s awareness on this issue while at the same time doing something concrete and meaningful for people. You can’t just talk; you must do.