Free Food Shelf

In many of the hostels, particularly the bigger ones, there is this thing called 'free food shelf'. People who no longer want or need their food leave it on these shelves so as to not waste it as others may make use of them. Often times, there's very little there, but every now and then, you get a hostel where tons of people stay and leave really good stuff behind. The hostel in Blue Mountains was one of them. In the 2 days that I was there, I saw nearly full bags of rice, cereal, flour, bread; milk, butter, sauces; unopenned bag of chips & cashews, can of peas & carrots, and bottle of orange juice. I didn't pick up the concept of free food until New Zealand, when I saw Alan and Mike checking them out and picking stuff out of them. It now dawned on me how much money I could've saved by scrounging as much food off of these free food shelves. I've also figured out that the best way to get quality free food is to notice the days and time that the not-free food shelves are cleaned out. Things not labelled to date are tossed out or put on the free food shelf. Be the first one there when all that food is first put out for the public.