Soup, there it is.

Right after Hurricane Sandy, Slate published an article called "Can the Cans" that encouraged people to forgo food drives and donate money to organizations that specialize in obtaining and distributing food to the people who need it.

Basically, you will get the biggest bang for your buck -- help the most people possible -- by writing a $10 check to the Food Bank for New York City or City Harvest instead of buying $10 worth of canned food. $10 might get you eight cans at Key Food, but those organizations will use the $10 to buy many pounds of food at wholesale prices:

All across America, charitable organizations and the food industry have set up mechanisms through which emergency food providers can get their hands on surplus food for a nominal handling charge. Katherina Rosqueta, executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania, explains that food providers can get what they need for “pennies on the dollar.” She estimates that they pay about 10 cents a pound for food that would cost you $2 per pound retail. You’d be doing dramatically more good, in basic dollars and cents terms, by eating that tuna yourself and forking over a check for half the price of a single can of Chicken of the Sea.

I run a food pantry for tenants in my supportive residence and each month I stock all kinds of canned chicken, mac and cheeses and salty noodles. There's a few stacks of Top Ramen in one box, a pile of Cup Noodles in another. Tenants no doubt appreciate this stuff, but it seems like a waste of donors' money.

Contributing tangible food packages feels good. It's gratifying to think that, later this month, some poor person who used up their food stamps too soon will go to a food pantry and actually eat the thing you donated! Yet, we have to spend our limited money wisely. That means we should identify and donate to effective organizations that will stretch your dollar and purchase giant cases of chicken and 10 lb. bags of rice.

As for the cans collecting dust on your shelves? Donate them already!

My pantry is mostly filled with soup, pinto beans and heavily salted corn, but I also find a bunch of exotic delights hidden among the WWI trench rations.

I imagine someone got a basket of biscuits and confusing spreads for Christmas one year but never found a way to use the organic honey. (Free-range bee vomit is way healthier and environmentally conscious. Duh.) They donated it instead of throwing it away. That's awesome!

People have to swallow their pride before they dip into a food pantry. They don't want to toil on a fixed income and have to eat second-hand food. I think it's great to offer some classy, foodie fare. For example, here's freaking foie gras.

In this case, someone read one of those generic animal rights action pamphlets and learned exactly how we get that duck's liver so plump and delicious. After retching, they donated all their canned poultry parts. 

Finally, East meets West over in my pantry. We recently received a few bags of panko bread crumbs, probably from a new carb-counter who purged their cabinet of all grains. Meanwhile, someone else donated about fifty bags of Nutrisystem meals. Maybe the two donors should have just swapped cupboards.

People shouldn't feel like they have to subsist off the crap no one else wants when they visit a food bank or pantry. I encourage you to donate all that interesting cuisine you'll probably never open.