William Reid doesn't believe in the five-second rule.

The dumpster-diving grad student says his trashy taste in food has helped him reduce his eating costs to US$2.75 a year, as he tries to call attention to the issues of food shortages and waste.

Reid says he routinely visits restaurant and grocery store dumpsters in search of his next meal, then brings the food home to be washed and consumed.

"A lot of people think that there's a method and that this is difficult," he told CTV News Channel on Wednesday. "It's not. It's just a matter of going around back and looking inside a bin."

Reid has been getting his food from dumpsters since 2014, when he started his garbage-meal lifestyle as an experiment. At the time, he was soliciting businesses for extra food to serve to those in need.

"During that time it started to occur to me that a lot of places that weren't donating to us probably had a lot of good food that they were throwing out," Reid said.

The American University student says he spent five months dumpster-diving for food and keeping it to himself, before deciding to use his story to raise awareness about food shortages.

"There is a lot of need in the United States for healthy, good fruits and vegetables among the poor and homeless," he said. "This problem is really rampant, and the amount of food and the quality of the food that I'm finding, I think, would surprise a lot of people."

He added that he occasionally offers others food plucked from the trash, but not without telling them first. He says his colleagues at the Washington Public Library will often eat candy that he brings in, although they had a few misgivings early on.

Reid says he's not concerned about getting sick from dumpster food. In fact, he says he's never felt sick after eating a meal taken from the garbage.

"I'm just getting food like you would be eating," he said. "The last thing on my mind is its presence in the dumpster."