Gio Andollo opened his plastic container of homemade treats.

“Feel free to try some if you want,” he told me and Langston Barboza, another Urban Journalism Workshop 2014 reporter.

“I just had a plate of bacon. So, no thanks,” Langston said, backing away from the snacks Mr. Andollo had made of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and marshmallows he’d salvaged from a grocery store dumpster.

My first impulse was to decline the offer, too. At our house in Brooklyn, we automatically throw out stale food and food whose freshness date has expired and stuff with mold and whatever else my health-conscious mother, a nutritionist who works with poor moms, might see as inedible.

So, I’m imagining the ingredients for Gio Andollo’s homecooked snack came out of a dumpster reeking with rot and swarming with flies.

For Mr. Andollo, though, his treats aren’t just some experiment in food. They reflect the activism that’s at the heart of the freegan movement. Freegans dumpster dive—and do other stuff—to protest “capitalism, consumerism, corporatism, and just a philosophy of disposability,” he said.

But, back to the diving and what divers do with that, uhm, salvaged food.

Mr. Andollo says freegan dishes can be as simple and traditional as ginger chicken made from un-trashed chicken breast. Or there are more experimental dishes such as zucchini noodles made from that un-trashed squash.

His snacks? I decided to take a bite, despite knowing my mother might not like that one bit.

Mr. Andollo, who is 29, assured me he wouldn’t be offended if I spit out his concoction. As he said this, he took a bite of one of the treats, chewing exaggeratedly, slowly, as if he was savoring the flavors.

I wasn’t sure if a journalist engages her news sources by eating their food. But I leaned in for a bite.

Yum. That bite was good in a pre-packaged Rice Krispies Treat kind of way. “Welcome to the community,” Mr. Andollo said, then laughed.

I’m not a freegan. But I said, “Thanks.” And I left, my reporting finished for the day.