ELLICOTT CITY, Md- Rob Greenfield is not your average health nut.
“I’m biking across America to tell people to live happy and free.”
Greenfield completed his journey with just the clothes on his back and his bicycle. Leaving his apartment in San Diego last summer, he pedaled barefoot across the country. Greenfield left with some money to sustain himself, but by the time he reached Detroit he realized that there were other people who needed it more than himself.
“I donated the remaining $400 dollars or so to charity and just kept on pedaling,” Greenfield says.
This isn’t the first time Greenfield has biked solo across the country but it is the first time he’s done it subsisting solely on the food he pulls from grocery store dumpsters.
“When people hear how I [eat],” Greenfield says, “they feel inspired… you will never have to buy food again, and you will probably eat just as healthy if not better.”
Greenfield says he still eats everything that a person who shops at a grocery store would eat. He has found fruits, vegetables, meats, milk, juice, frozen pizzas, and much more. His favorite find was a whole carton of still frozen ice cream. However, eating still edible food out of a dumpster is not just a matter of health, Greenfield explains.
“We throw away billions of dollars of perfectly good food, and yet there are still millions of hungry people.”
At every major city where he stopped, Greenfield hosted events to educate people on food waste and energy conservation. He ended his journey with a “Food Waste Fiasco” demonstration in the heart of New York City.
“My goal is to get grocery stores to donate their unwanted food to the thousands of food rescue programs across the nation and help cut back on all this waste,” Greenfield says.
Not everything Greenfield finds is still edible. That includes a rotten apple he found in a grocery store dumpster in Ellicott City in Howard County.
“This isn’t good, this is meant to be in here,” said Greenfield after pulling the apple from the dumpster.
But Greenfield says he hopes that his journey is enough to make people think about what they choose to throw away and what they choose to donate.
“I will never need to purchase my own food ever again. and neither should America.”