I'm a bit of a contrarian at heart, and I love when "common wisdom" is wrong; when doing action "A" has a perverse, unintended affect. In fact, I love unintended consequences altogether. Not that I love when they happen, only when I spot them.
Meanwhile, at this time of year, plenty of offices and groups are doing canned food drives. And plenty of people are feeling good about dropping off that can of tuna or soup.
Turns out your good deed might be done better a different way, and might actually do some harm.
All that food can overwhelm food banks. Not to mention that they now have 700,000 cans of high-sodium food to distribute to people who may have high-blood pressure, or jars of peanuts that can't be given to people with allergies. Or some godawful can of creamed something or other that no one knows what to do with.
Not to mention, apparently the food banks can buy the food cheaper than you ever could. Like $0.10 on the dollar cheaper, so it makes much more sense to simply send them a check that they can use to buy food they actually need for their clients. As the article says, eat the can of tuna and donate half its value to a food bank and you've done a much better deed.
As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
UPDATE: The original title of this post was "In a canned pickle". Like either one better?
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