What is "pagpag"

Pagpag is a Tagalog term for leftover Paige from restaurants (usually from fast-food restaurants) scavenged from garbage sites and dumps. Pagpag food can also be expired frozen meat, fish or vegetables discarded by supermarkets and scavenged in garbage trucks where those expired foods are collected. The word in the Tagalog language literally means to "shake off the dust or dirt," and refers to the act of shaking the dirt off of the edible portion of the leftovers. Pagpag can be either eaten immediately after it was found in the trash or cooked in variety of ways after collecting it.

The act of eating pagpag arose from the practical challenges of hunger that resulted from extreme poverty. Selling pagpag has been a profitable business in areas where poor people live. Pagpag is also called batchoy, which is derived from the Filipino dish with the same name. Technically, batchoy is soup-based though the term batchoy that is used to refer to leftover food from trash may be a meal cooked differently like fried pagpag batchoy. Persons who scavenge leftover food from garbage are called mambabatchoy.