Thanks for reminding us of these great movies, Anonymous, and indeed they should not be forgotten. But I was focusing both on films that had been both recently produced (in the last 6-9 months) and which didn’t receive the attention- though they certainly deserved to - which other bigger budget movies (such as Julie & Julia ) did.

Kim, I was also really surprised at how community oriented the freegans were. Most of their food gathering expeditions seemed to take place in groups. No doubt this had the practical application of being to haul away more food but they always seemed to just enjoy being together. One of the freegans described how the dumpster was akin to a dining table and how occasionally they would just sit along the edges and eat together there and then.
As for the time commitment, it seemed as if they typically go collecting food around once or twice a week. I guess they could gather a fair amount in one go. Honestly, you would be shocked at how much stuff gets thrown out especially by the chain supermarkets. And they tend to go in the evenings / night when stores put out their garbage for collection. Food factories in Brooklyn and Queens are especially ripe territory for dumpster diving in NYC especially as food items are often thrown out in bulk. There was much talk of a mythical pomegranate juice dumpster outside a juice factory!