Food Not Bombs passes out free food and promotes an antiwar message every Wednesday outside the UNM Bookstore.
The organization was created in the mid-1980s as a way to protest nuclear weapons, said Mike Butler, coordinator for the Albuquerque chapter.
Food Not Bombs has been more active in some years than others, Butler said. The group attracted crowds in the early 1990s and early 2000s, he said.
He said the group runs on three main principles: nonviolence, vegetarianism and consensus decision making.
Organic stores and the Roadrunner Food Bank donate food to the group.
"We cook three meals a week," Butler said. "We get the food from donations, and we will take it back to my house, among other places, and cook it."
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Butler said Food Not Bombs tries to instill an anti-establishment mentality in students and teach them to worry about everyone getting fed with no government interference.
"Taking the waste that is a product of today's capitalism and putting it back into the system as food is what we are doing," Butler said.
Not every student thinks Food Not Bombs is a good movement.
"I think that it is an overall good idea, but I think that it is done in a horrible way," senior Jake Gaddy said.
He said the food is a good way to help people out, but the anarchic message is a lost point.
"If they were to promote their activities in a more peaceful way, it would mean a lot more," Gaddy said.
Butler said Food Not Bombs stresses resisting authority more than it promotes anarchy.
"I would tell students to get involved," Butler said. "If you want to be creative and resist authority, all the while trying to end hunger, then take part in Food Not Bombs."
