What Is Food Not Bombs

Food Not Bombs (FNB) was founded in the early 1980s as an outgrowth of the anti-nuke movement. It is based on the notion that if resources were not wasted on weapons of war and on perpetuating the existing system of individual greed, there would be plenty to meet everyone's basic needs for food, housing, and health care.
Hundreds of autonomous FNB chapters around the world collect fresh food every week that would otherwise go to waste, food that’s no longer pretty enough to be sold. We look forward to the day when no one will ever find food in the trash. Until that day, we will turn what is conventionally thought of as waste into warm meals for anyone who wants to eat. We know that everyone deserves to eat regardless of who they are, where they live, what they look like, or anything else about them.

Waste

Scarcity is a lie, there is more than enough food for everyone and poor food distribution is the problem. There is enough food in the world to feed everybody two kilograms of food per day. This equals roughly three large meals. However, because of money and unrelenting greed, most food is never purchased and is either thrown away or is left to rot. In the average city, approximately 10% of all solid waste is food. Nationally, this is an incredible total of 46 billion pounds per year, just under 200 pounds per person per year.
It is because of capitalism that governments and corporations are encouraged to do what is profitable, instead of what is right, and in this system, those who have money and power sit at the top and dictate the lives of people at the bottom. Because of capitalism, everything is treated as a commodity. Food is given only to those who can afford it. To rectify these wrongs, FNB feeds anybody, without restriction, and organizes on a non-hierarchical, volunteer basis.
Food is a right, not a privilege.

Vegetarian/Vegan

In addition to the collection and distribution of surplus food, Food Not Bombs encourages vegetarianism and veganism. If more people were vegetarian and demanded organically grown, locally produced foods, this would encourage organic farming practices and support smaller farms. This, in turn, would make it easier to decentralize the means of food production and democratize the control over the quality of the food produced and enable a genuine stewardship of the land.
The current meat-based diet eaten by our society allows for huge "agro-businesses" which are dependent on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, resulting in the declining nutritional value of the food produced and a further wounded environment. All mass produced meats in this country are full of chemicals, drugs, enhancers, and preservatives and all milk is contaminated with radioactive fallout. Factory farms wage violence against and create lives of unending misery to intelligent, sentient animals. They and those who support the meat industry diretly contribute to this unnecessary suffering and agony.
Vegetarianism is better for the environment, consumes less resources, rejects cruelty, and is healthier for us.

Politics

Food Not Bombs operates on the anarchist belief that we must work to build alternative institutions now, at the grassroots level, to help create the just society we would like to live in. This is why Food Not Bombs is all-volunteer, collectively run, non-hierarchical, and anti-authoritarian. All decisions, within each autonomous chapter, are made by consensus. No one is in charge. No one gives orders. We have no leader or headquarters. Things get done because people see that something needs doing.

Permits

We refuse to get a permit for our servings; we believe nobody needs permission to share food with those in need. Our community meals aim at reclaiming public spaces from state and corporate control and ensuring that these places are open and safe for community use. By giving away food to people in need in public places, we directly dramatize the level of hunger in this country and the surplus of food being wasted. We also call attention to the failures of this society to support those within it while funding the forces of war and violence, which includes the police.

Religion

We are secular and do not condone religious groups that give food on a conditional basis and force their beliefs down the throats of those they claim they help. Religious groups are often exclusionary: excluding different races, ethnicities, other religions, non-religious people, or gays and lesbians. Churches often view homelessness as a ‘problem’. We are not impersonal like soup kitchens, and we don’t ‘feed’ people. We share what we have in hopes of building a better community and world.

Food Not Bombs Is NOT A Charity

Food Not Bombs is not and never will be a charity. The French Queen, Marie Antoinette, tried to stop a revolution by offering rioters at the palace gates cake and pastry. That's charity. Charity ignores and distracts from the causes of poverty and hunger. By throwing spare change into a hat or a tithing to a church, the rich and middle class seek to absolve themselves of responsibility for the poor. Yet, the economic institution they thrive on, capitalism, is the same mechanism which creates and institutionalizes poverty.
We cannot ignore the root problems of these societal horrors: we demand they be confronted, and call for the destruction of the system that perpetuates them.

Hunger/Homelessness

The majority of people going hungry today are not the stereotyped street person the media would have you believe. Hungry people are children and single parents (mostly women), the working poor, the unemployed, the elderly, the chronically ill, and those a on fixed income. Many people find themselves in the clutches of oppressive poverty even while trying to improve their condition.
According to the US Census, 12.7% (37 million people!) of the population are currently in poverty.
The number of homeless people living in America is unknown, however the National Coalition for the Homeless cites an Urban Institute study, which says that 3.5 million people (1.35 million children) will experience homelessness in any given year.
Homelessness is only a problem to some people. There are many people who choose this lifestyle, and we support them. For others, however, living a life on the streets is a struggle, and we aim to help them. The government, instead of making abandoned property available to people or creating more homeless and community centers, has criminalized the homeless. We see the hungry, homeless and poor as equalsand friends, and treat them that way.

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