Going quiet, he walks towards a steel fence, and pulls himself up to peer over the other side- this is more like it.

“Ok, there’s no one there at the moment but the lights are still on, we’ll have to be quick.”

One foot on a stack of crates, he lifts himself over the wall, landing quietly on the bin at the other side and motioning for me to follow.

On the other side and considering the fact that we’re now legally trespassers, I wonder whether I’ve put too much trust into Mark, as he opens his bag and lifts the top on two bins.

Peering inside however, I remember why I’m doing this in the first place. The bin to our right is full of bags of bread and pastries, both packaged and sliced varieties as well as bread left at the bakery at the end of the day.

None of this bread is mouldy or damaged in any way, only an hour ago I could have bought it from inside. Mark begins to fill his first bag and motions me to do the same.

Eating Free?

Freeganism, otherwise known as dumpster diving and skipping, is the act of taking and reclaiming food thrown out by shops and supermarkets.

With the rise of Food Banks in the UK over the last few years, it’s unsurprising that the freeganism culture has grown also.

My bin diving guide Mark is from the Junk Food Project, the biggest freeganist organisation in the UK. Starting out as a small cafe in the North, they are now set up many cities countrywide.

The Real Junk Food Project does not just donate food and live off waste food themselves, instead they have set up unique cafes where people can choose to come and eat.

“We are a global, organic network of pay as you feel cafes” says the project. “We divert food destined for waste and use it to create delicious and healthy meals.”

Can You Really Live Off The Food We Throw Away?

Bin diving is legal in the UK (although people are occasionally prosecuted by big supermarkets), so if it’s as clean and easy as freeganists claim, why aren’t we all at it?

After my bin diving experience with Mark I got back to my flat, bag heavy with food and started to plan my week of eating.

In the spirit of not being wasteful, I decide on one important rule for my week- any food left uneaten in my cupboards should be allowed into my meals.

I had porridge, milk,  cherry tomatoes, a sweet potato, two eggs, a tin of chopped  tomatoes  and some cous cous. Apart from that little collection however, only food thrown out by supermarkets would be allowed in my meals.

Here’s how I did…..

Day 1

I’m heading to work with a brie, cranberry and salad sandwich.

As someone who generally packs the blandest and simplest lunches imaginable (vegetable soup is a staple), this is pretty unheard of.

In the kitchen at lunchtime, three colleagues note my impressive looking sandwich, while walking through with bags of Pret goodies that most likely cost them eight pounds a head.

It’s hard to not feel a twinge of smugness when looking at my food. I can’t believe that had Mark and I not gone on our scavenger hunt, this food would be rotting at the bottom of a bin container right now.

Day 5

After having cravings for a subway sandwich all day, I decide to make , shakshuka, my favourite meal, tonight.

Looking in my fridge after five days, I’m amazed and slightly disgusted by how not one item of food I found in those bins nearly a week ago is showing any signs off mould.

While best before dates are now widely known to be far from gospel when it comes to when food is safe to eat, its hard to believe that this food could have been discarded a week ago.

My subway craving suddenly seems faintly ridiculous when there’s so much food in my house that needs to be used before I think about buying more.

Day 6

Nearly a whole week has passed without buying food!

The fridge is looking pretty bare so I decide to bake one of the potatoes and stir fry up some of the leftover vegetables with lentils.

Sat eating some biscuits (from a pack I’d actually forgotten about from the bin haul, score!) I realise that I’ve only got one day left.

For the past six days I’ve fresher and healthier than usual and while some mealtimes have been a little dull, I haven’t felt hungry once….

Day 7

The chopping board above is what I had left on the last day of my week of freeganism.

I imagined mouldy bread and rotting veg, yet neither of these things happened. I thought I’d be hungry and the week would be a test of my endurance to not buy more food- but I fed myself happily all week.

My diet wasn’t fancy and I couldn’t have had anyone around for dinner, but I didn’t feel like I was missing out.

The vegetables in the picture above were roasted to make a meal that anyone in the world without access to food could only dream of.

So why were they sat in a bin a week ago, ready to be dumped in a landfill?

What Food Crisis?

I thought my week would simply show me whether bin diving was a legitimate lifestyle choice or a protest, but it showed me much more.

There’s tonnes of perfectly edible food being thrown out at shops every night across the UK, while thousands of people are struggling to feed themselves and their families. We could feed so many more people with the food we simply throw away.

Supermarkets say that they cannot legally sell food past its best before date and that stopping people from bin diving is for their safety- yet this doesn’t excuse them for the amount of food left to rot.

Projects like Real Junk Food is showing the ridiculous level of food wasted and how it can be used, but shops themselves need to look for an answer to stop it being in the bins in the first place.

We have a food crisis in the UK, yet we’re throwing 1.3 billion tonnes of edible food. It just doesn’t make sense.

While we can’t all commit to diving through bins every week, we can promise to curb our own waste.

Going for a weekly shop and throwing out old, forgotten about food is something I do regularly. Making a portion too big and throwing away the rest is a habit I didn’t even realise I had.

We can also support groups who do redistribute waste food and make it known that we want change about regulations in the UK regarding waste food.

A week eating out of supermarket bins was easy and that’s terrible. We need to stop food going in the trash and directing it towards all the people who need it.

Find out how you can support your local Real Junk Food Project here.