I think buying food in lieu of giving money ignores the fact that money is fairly fungible. A dollar saved on food expenses is a dollar that can be spent on the

I think buying food in lieu of giving money ignores the fact that money is fairly fungible. A dollar saved on food expenses is a dollar that can be spent on the vices that the donor is trying to prevent. As for my answer to the question, I try to limit my charitable contributions to charities praised for efficiency and effectiveness on the various watchdog sites, but I usually end up cracking and giving in person as well. On a related note, writing my post reminded me of an old LessWrong post [1] I saw. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_separately/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_sepa...