A "freegan" is one who eats only free food. They get food through donations, finds, or dumpster diving most frequently. Some self-identified freegans will purchase food that they consider socially conscious, but only eat certain foods, such as meat, if doing so will prevent unnecessary waste (at a picnic, for example) and doesn't support the industry.

Freeganism is an anti-consumerism lifestyle whereby people employ alternative living strategies based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. Freegans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed. The lifestyle involves salvaging discarded unspoiled food that is still edible and nutritious. Most Freegans salvage the food not because they are poor or homeless, but as a political statement.

The word "freegan" is a blend of "free" and "vegan". Freeganism started in the mid 1990s, out of the antiglobalization and environmentalist movements. Groups such as Food Not Bombs serve free vegetarian and vegan food that is frequently salvaged from food market trash by dumpster diving. The movement also has elements of Diggers, an anarchist street theater group based in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco in the 1960s, that gave away rescued food.