Mardi Gras is a bigger deal than I realized. I thought it was just several days of festivity, this year culminating on February 24, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. But about two weeks ago, shortly after all the Christmas decorations had come down, the Mardi Gras decorations began to go up. They are beautiful. The Mardi Gras colors are purple, gold, and green, and you gotta (especially when your favorite color is purple) love a holiday that spotlights those colors. Couple that with the rare but still occasionally seen Valentine's Day decorations, and I am in magical color bliss.
Here are some questions we've been struggling with recently. Why does begging have such a negative stigma attached to it? We stepped into a hotel yesterday to use the restroom on our way home from busking in the Quarter and Brendan noticed that a buffet lunch was in progress. We talked about what it would be like to go to a hotel kitchen as ask them to give us the leftover food from buffets such as that one, food that would otherwise be thrown away. My immediate reaction is that I would never want to do that because it seems like begging.
An article I read awhile back in a sustainable living magazine highlighted a woman who has developed a relationship with her local grocery store. She goes there on a particular day once or twice a week and they give her their just-expired products. She takes what she needs for her family, and delivers the rest to a shelter or food bank (I don't remember the exact details). This is essentially the same situation as the hypothetical one, but it feels so much "nicer." I put that in quotes because it seems like an illusion to me. It's still someone taking someone else's trash.
So why does it so much better than the first example? I think the only reason is because of the extra going to a shelter or food bank. The grocery store and the person who takes what he/she needs and donates the rest can both feel morally superior for having done this good act. I don't mean to demean this--I think it's great that perfectly good food that would otherwise be trash would go to someone's grateful belly. I also think it's great to support shelters and food banks. But why do I react so strongly against something that seems akin to begging and not to something that's also like begging but couched in good deeds?
These are just preliminary thoughts. But I think this question is well-worth considering. There is something wrong that we have such negative reactions to begging.
4 comments:
Purple and Gold? Must remind you of the Huskies!
Can food banks distribute expired food? I realize the food is often good past the date, but it seems that the food bank would be held responsible if some food was bad.
"Begging" has a pejorative meaning, that the beggar is an unproductive burden on society, implying that you are asking for what would otherwise go to a more deserving person. Whereas, politely requesting that a person generously share his/her otherwise discarded excess food with those who are willing to come by at the end of the event to help dispose of the potential waste, is good and righteous and 'living by the kindness of strangers'; and, should you carry the surplus to a food bank or distribute it to the poor, then you yourself become a saint.
It often seems easier to wait until the food is actually discarded, hence dumpster diving. Attitude counts, both yours and the givers. In fact, you are helping the environment by making use of what would otherwise be discarded. On the other hand, if many people depended on that, then food would not be produced and we would all starve.
PS It's MARDI GRAS, from the French for Tuesday.
On asking for banquet leftovers: Taking what others give freely should not cause a problem but asking others puts them in a bind. They have superiors who may frown on their decision to part with what is waste and those people have superiors who would be held responsible if you sued because you were sickened. In a society in which there is overproduction of food (ours) but inequity of distribution(ours), the problem is that the state laws declare it illegal to distribute food which has been exposed to others. This is ostensibly meant to prevent germs and diseases from being spread but actually may have to do with keeping production higher. On the day when people can no longer sue so freely for such large amounts of money because laws will limit money that can be acquired through suits, I expect both a loosening of protective laws and an increase in illness.
Anthony: Yes, I think it does remind me of the Huskies--yet another reason to bask in the delights of color here.
I don't know about food banks distributing expired food. I agree it seems like that would be a liability for them. Perhaps soup kitchens, though, can, since they are preparing the food right away and then serving it to be eaten right away. I don't know, though.
Drama grandma: Thanks for the correction. I think I imagine the Spanish "Martes" and combine the two.
(from Brendan): The problem of food not being produced if too many people eat the waste is only really a problem in a "taker" society (reference ISHMAEL, by Daniel Quinn), one in which we lock the food up. But I get what you're getting at. I think about this with hitchhiking a lot, too. If everybody hitchhiked, no one would be driving, and hitchhikers would get nowhere. But I reason that we live in this society and we adapt to it... If more people started hitchhiking - so many that there were significantly fewer cars on the road, then all the wasted energy that is now put into those single occupancy vehicles would be rerouted to public transit. I hypothesize that in this outlandish world people would know their neighbors better because they would have been hitchhiking with them, etc, and whole blocks could invest in a few cars and coordinate their use together, and only families in rural areas would need individual cars.
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