Huge cache of food bank leftovers found

20 percent gets thrown away
Creekpaum said 20 percent of the food, drink and other donations that his food bank processes, much of them from large corporate sources, must be tossed for a variety of reasons. "Most of the product we get is already past the date it can be in the grocery story,” he said, although it can still be safely used. But much of it can’t, so it’s sorted out and sent to the pig farm or a landfill.

But what about all the bottled water that can be seen in Paiva’s pictures? And the toothpaste? “That water was fluoride treated so that’s something that spoils,” Creekpaum said. He said he would look into the toothpaste further.  “I don’t think there have should been toothpaste on there. That’s not policy to send that to the pig farm.”

Christine Ahn said the desert food dump appears to be a consequence of the “piecemeal and oftentimes self-serving proposals for ending hunger” that she criticized in a 2004 paper titled “Beyond the Food Bank,” written for the Institute for Food and Development Policy. "I think that's your story right there."

Ahn and fellow author Brahm Ahmadi said that tax breaks and public relations initiatives are fueling a food donation cycle whose goal is not to end hunger so much as to serve corporate needs.

Their report noted that snack foods, cookies, coffee, soda, water and other beverages accounted for 25 percent of the 279 million pounds of grocery products donated to Second Harvest nationwide in 2003. Apparently inspired by tax breaks, other donations ranged from wallpaper to glue.

“We’re not really looking at the root causes of why are people lining up at the food banks,” such as a lack of “self-sufficient local food production … living wage jobs, universal health care and affordable housing,” Ahn said.

"I don’t like to get into any kind of political debate along those lines,” Creekpaum responded, but “for people to say that people only donate for a tax break is, I’m sorry to say, asinine. Most of the ones that are donating are donating because they believe in the cause they’re donating to."

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