Skip to main content

Food Not Bombs

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics
  • 393 Accesses

Synonyms

Antiwar food justice; Community kitchens; Community meals; Food movement; Food waste and politicized food rescue; Sharing food in public space

Introduction

Food Not Bombs is the umbrella name for a loose network of self-organizing food justice groups that began in Boston in 1980 and whose work is anti-hunger, antiwar, and pro animal rights. Currently the movement is made up of a decentralized network of 500 chapters in 60 countries (Food Not Bombs 2012). Food Not Bombs groups rescue food from various nodes in the food system including farms, restaurants, grocery stores, distributors, community-supported agriculture, and bakeries among many other places. Operating outside of the state, not-for- profit, and religious social service sector, Food Not Bombs food rescue efforts involve local connections with food businesses. These connections create mutually beneficial relationships whereby the businesses can reduce their food waste through regular donations. Once rescued, Food Not...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 1,099.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 1,299.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Butler, C. T., & McHenry, K. (2000). Food not bombs. Tucson: See Sharp Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clines, F. (1993, September 26). Candidates attack the squeegee men. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/26/nyregion/candidates-attack-the-squeegee-men.html. Accessed 22 Mar 2013.

  • Coleman-Jensen, A., Nord, M., Andrews, M., & Carlson, S. (2011) Household food security in the United States in 2010. Retrieved from http://www.usda.gov. Accessed 31 Dec 2012.

  • Cornell, A. (2010). The movement for a new society: Consensus, prefiguration, and direct action. In D. Berger (Ed.), The hidden 1970s: Histories of radicalism (pp. 231–249). New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Day, R. (2005). Gramsci is dead: Anarchist currents in the newest social movements. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Enke, A. (2003). Taking over domestic space: The Battered women’s movement and public protest. In V. Gosse & R. Moser (Eds.), The world the sixties made: Politics and culture in recent America (pp. 162–190). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Epstein, B. (1991). Political protest and cultural revolution: Nonviolent direct action in the 1970s and 1980s. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feeding Resistance: Food Not Bombs Members Arrested in Orlando for Serving Meals Without a Permit. (2011). http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/24/feeding_resistance_food_not_bombs_members#transcript. Accessed 31 Dec 2012.

  • Food Not Bombs. (2012). Frequently asked questions. http://foodnotbombs.net/faq.html. Accessed 31 Dec 2012.

  • Gunders, D. (2012). Wasted: How America is losing up to 40 percent of its food from farm to fork to landfill. Retrieved from http://www.nrdc.org. Accessed 31 Dec 2012.

  • Herbert, S. (2005). The trapdoor of community. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95(4), 850–865.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heynen, N. (2009). Bending the bars of empire from every ghetto for survival: The Black Panther Party’s radical antihunger politics of social reproduction and scale. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99(2), 406–422.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heynen, N. (2010). Cooking up non-violent civil-disobedient direct action for the hungry: ‘Food Not Bombs’ and the resurgence of radical democracy in the US. Urban Studies, 47(6), 1225–1240.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holtzman, B., Hughes, C., & Van Meter, K. (2007). Do it yourself… And the movement beyond capitalism. In E. Biddle, S. Shukaitis, & D. Graeber (Eds.), Constituent imagination (pp. 41–57). Oakland: AK Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobson, S. (2011, June 2). Three arrested, accused of illegally feeding homeless. Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved from http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/crime/os-homeless-feedings-arrests-20110601,0,7226362.story. Accessed 31 Dec 2012.

  • Katz, C. (1999). Excavating the hidden city of social reproduction: A commentary. City and Society Annual Review, 10, 37–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelling, G., & Wilson, J. (1982, March 1). Broken windows: The police and neighborhood safety. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/304465/?single_page=true. Accessed 5 Apr 2013.

  • Low, S., & Smith, N. (2006). The politics of public space. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, D. (2003). The right to the city: Social justice and the fight for public space. New York: The Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, D., & Heynen, N. (2009). The geography of survival and the right to the city: Speculations on surveillance, legal innovation, and the criminalization of intervention. Urban Geography, 30(6), 611–632.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parson, S. M. (2010). An ungovernable force? Food not bombs, homeless activism and politics in San Francisco, 1988–1995. Doctoral dissertation. Retrieved from Scholars’ Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11179. Accessed 5 Apr 2013.

  • Shepard, B. (2007). Bridging the praxis divide: From direct action to direct services and back again. In E. Biddle, S. Shukaitis, & D. Graeber (Eds.), Constituent imagination (pp. 180–198). Oakland: AK Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • The National Coalition for the Homeless & The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. (2010). A place at the table: prohibitions on sharing food with people experiencing homelessness. Retrieved from http://www.nlchp.org. Accessed 12 Dec 2012.

  • Tracy, J. (1996). Direct action: Radical pacifism from the Union Eight to the Chicago Seven. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Spataro .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this entry

Cite this entry

Spataro, D. (2014). Food Not Bombs. In: Thompson, P.B., Kaplan, D.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0929-4_432

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0929-4_432

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-0928-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-0929-4

  • eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law

Publish with us

Policies and ethics