Shows often show homeless people eating out of garbage cans, but isnt that dangerous?!
In particular, you see this happening alot on childrens shows (children are likely to assume that's safe and try it), and i saw a documentary once where they had a kid who kept digging food out of the garbage (he had some genetic disease where he was unable to tell when he was full, his parents literally had to lock all the cubbards in the house bc if he just ate as he pleased, he would do so until his stomach ripped open, and several times they caught him digging food out of the trash just trying to find more to devour).
Seriously, why do they show this and how dangerous is it?
Answers:
ys, it can be dangerous to eat rotten food, especially if its a hot day and the food you find is cheese or meat.
BUT- I have eaten from dumpsters. It is very embarrassing to say so, but I have been without money sometimes.
Sometimes there is very good food in there- you wouldn't believe what some people throw out. Really good loaves of bread, sealed in the plastic bag- perfect fruit, whole bags of fruit- apples and oranges etc.
Ceral boxes- sealed ones too. New boxes of dougnuts with only two taken out. Cans of beans, menudo, rice, pasta and vegetables- full sealed cans.
I've found amazing stuff from garbage cans, but if you relied on it for your food, it would be horrible all the time.
There is enough food poisoning inside homes too, though. like from cleaners, rat poison, ecoli etc.
It's dangerous but from what I've read there are precautionary steps one can take. Also just because food is thrown out doesn't automatically make it spoiled, lots of restaurants have a lot of extra food on hand that's just tossed. Then when it's thrown into the, yeck, garbage it's usually in a nice, neat package.
Yes, it's dangerous. But there are people all over cities everywhere that do just that, because they're desperate. They're starving to death, and they find food in trashcans.
because they're frickin starving and their bodies are almost eating themselves
yeah, seems pretty gross... get germs and diseases and such.
I used to live in Sanata Monica in a nice neighborhood. Would see this old lady in the supermarket and around the area and say hello. Always very neatly dressed in clean nice clothes. Never thought one day I'd see her behind the market picking out food. When she saw me she was so embarrassed and started saying that her husband had died, the rent control had ended and the rent went up, and the Social Security checks left her without enough money for food. It was so sad. I gave her $20. which she looked so humiliated and refused at first, but I insisted and made a joke to lighten her mood. When people are hungry they do things they otherwise would be scared to do.
