Dangers of Dumpster Food Is Focus of Video for Homeless : Film: Garden Grove couple’s project has been distributed to shelters nationwide, but has been blasted by critics who say it encourages people to scavenge through garbage.

In the 12 years that Frank has been on the streets, the meals he has scavenged from dumpsters have made him violently ill more than once.

“Ptomaine,” Frank explained. “Now I only eat fruit and vegetables” out of dumpsters, he said.

To help Frank, who declined to give his last name, and others like him become aware of the dangers of foraging in dumpsters for food, a Garden Grove couple teamed up with a homeless activist and produced a video titled “The Fine Art of Dumpster Dining.”

Distributed to more than 30 shelters and other organizations working directly with the homeless nationwide, the video has been requested by groups across the country and in Europe, said Linda Dunlap, 44, a co-producer of the film. But it has also been lambasted by critics who say it encourages scavenging in dumpsters.

Dunlap and her husband, Dave, 46, a computer engineer, said they are amazed both at how popular and controversial their video has become.

“This whole thing has gotten crazy,” she said. “I can’t imagine getting calls from all over the world.”

The video takes the form of a talk show with Linda Dunlap and an Orange County health official discussing the dangers of food found in dumpsters. Ted Hayes of the Los-Angeles based Justiceville U.S.A., a homeless advocacy organization, moderates the discussion.

One scene in the video shows Hayes at a dumpster showing two homeless men how to choose fruit and vegetables with thick, unbroken skins that can be washed.

Linda Dunlap explains that food also can be poisoned by spilled chemicals or contaminated by insects and rodents or by glass, wood chips, metal fibers, razors or cigarette butts.

Proteins, which are the most nutritious, are also the most dangerous, she advises. Meat, milk and other dairy products left in closed dumpsters for just two hours in warm weather can cause bacteria to grow at a rapid rate, causing botulism, shigellosis or salmonellosis, says Dunlap, a former nurse.

“You can’t see (the bacteria), you can’t taste it, and you can’t smell it.” Many people who become ill think they have the flu because of the similar symptoms of dizziness, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

The video is the fifth in a series of seven dealing with homelessness which aired on a Paragon Cable program called “Taking It From the Streets.”

The Dunlaps, who last year distributed hundreds of lockable trash cans on wheels to homeless people to store their possessions, have distributed about 100 copies of the video, selling some at cost for $5 but giving most for free.

But criticism of the video has come from both conservative groups and some homeless advocates.

Betsy Hart, director of lectures and seminars for The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, said, “I think it’s immoral to teach people to go through deadly, dangerous, rotting garbage for food.

“It just seems to me that the reason food is in a dumpster is because it’s garbage, it’s not good enough to be on next day’s menu, so the only thing it is good for is being thrown away,” said Hart, who also criticized the video on Cable Network News.

But Dunlap contended: “The first thing we do (in the video) is tell them not to do it.” The video repeats that advice 54 times, she said. But the reality is that the people scavenge for food in dumpsters, and they don’t know about the dangers, she said.

“All we are trying to do is try to help (the homeless) survive a little less painfully,” she said.

The video has also been criticized several times recently by national talk show host Rush Limbaugh on his New York-based syndicated radio talk show.

“I found it appalling that people who claim to have compassion and understanding and care and concern about the homeless would actually produce a video that teaches them that the thing to do for food is to rummage through dumpsters to find things to eat,” Limbaugh said in an interview. “It is unsanitary, it is certainly unhealthful, and it’s exploitative.”

But many hungry people gamble.

“When people are in the street they will do anything to survive,” said Hayes, whose group sprang up in 1985 after the city of Los Angeles bulldozed a shantytown.

“We decry it. It’s a shame. It’s disgusting that anyone, especially in America, should have to eat out of garbage cans,” Hayes said.

Dunlap said she believes the film is generating negative reaction because “it’s an indictment against America. That maybe is what’s upsetting people,” she said.

“I think homelessness in America pits itself against the very core of the American ethic . . . (that) if you’re smart enough and work hard you can have it all.”

Her husband agrees.

“The saddest thing we had to do was make the video in the first place,” he said. “When people go off half-cocked, it really bothers me. . . . It’s not just that we’re hurt, we’re misunderstood.”

Ray Evans, an environmental health inspector for the Orange County Health Care Agency who appears on the video, said he believes “without question” that the project has value.

“It is a very important message to get out to people on the street,” he said. Dumpster dining is “a hazardous way to go.”

But many homeless people don’t know that shelters exist or don’t want to go there, said Richard Lamm, program manager for the Orange-based Food Distribution Center. His group distributes 7.7 million pounds of food a year to 218 agencies in the county, or enough to feed 177,000 people a month. But Lamm said the homeless often avoid places where they can get free meals because of strings attached to the meals and instead choose to eat out of dumpsters.

“A lot of churches will require you to sit through a church service” before food is given, he said. Other agencies have long lines or don’t allow a person who has been drinking or using drugs to come in for meals, workers said.

The Dunlaps’ video also caused a stir at a recent conference in Berkeley sponsored by the California Hunger Action Coalition.

“People were shocked and outraged,” said Mark Lowry, food services manager for the Costa Mesa-based Community Development Council.

“There was concern expressed by people that this sent an inappropriate message to the broader community that it is acceptable for people to resort to eating other people’s trash, and that in America today there should be better options for people who are homeless and hungry,” he said.

“I’m a little torn,” Lowry said, likening the discussion to talking to teen-agers about safe sex. “On the one hand, you don’t want to encourage it,” he said. “On the other hand, if you admit teen-agers will have sex, you should talk about it. There’s that real delicate balance.”

Those most at risk from eating the wrong food out of dumpsters are people with AIDS, Linda Dunlap said, because their immune systems cannot fight the bacteria.

Mentally ill people, who often do not know good food from bad, are also at risk, she said.

Meanwhile, the Dunlaps are continuing in their efforts to distribute the video and to work on other projects such as teaching homeless people to read.