Dumpster Diving

Have you ever driven by and seen someone digging trash out of a dumpster filling their shopping cart with stuff you would consider trash and unuseful? Did you feel sorry for them or maybe felt you were too good to do something like that? Did you feel your social status raise a level?  Later on while sipping cocktails with friends did you bring up what you saw and everyone had a good laugh?

 
At what time does dumpster diving become socially acceptable? Is it when the crunch finally happens and we have to do it to feed our families? Is it acceptable if we were artists and looking for material to work with? Would it be okay if we were using the food found for animals and not human consumption?  

Lets explore the last one. The cost of feed and hay has skyrocketed to a price where only the rich can afford to keep animals. Around here nasty crap hay is going for $120 a round. A fifty pound bag of feed last year was $8.00 and now it is $13.50
There is no way to up the price of the animals you raise to overcome the cost of feeding it. If so, a Laying hen would be sold for around $30.00

The dumpsters in the little town I share a zip code with is a treasure trove for free food. The three little stores throw out several buggies of food a day that are only one day out of date. It is enough food to feed all my animals for weeks.
I have talked with the managers and the policy is the food must hit the dumpster before anyone can get it. They are not allowed to park the buggies out back and let me get it. I have to go into the dumpster and get it out. When told that, I just crinkle my nose and say no thank you.

Being the town I live near is so small, all it would take is one person to recognize me and before the kids get to school the next day it would be all over town that we were so poor that I have to get food out of the trash just to eat. Being unknown to them that I will still be eating my stored food months after they have already starved to death and this food is just for the animals, people will assume the worse and spread it like a wild fire. I have really never cared what "they" say about me but for the kids it would not be fair.

Here is another hypothetical. What if you finally decided in the cover of darkness to get that food and once home you see it is really good food, would you keep it and eat it yourself?

I should not have to worry about this stuff. I should be able to, with pride, dive head first into a dumpster full of box foods, canned goods, packages of pasta or day old bread and know I am saving money, but I don't.