Not far from where I live, there are plenty of strawberry fields where I go outside to run. Over the years I found that every year, they'd throw huge amount of perfectly edible fruit in big piles at the edges of the field. Last spring I started collecting them in 5 gallon pails. The plan was to use them for Jam. Being quite lazy, I figured it'd be too much of an effort for me to cut the leaves. I wasn't sure what to expect but I love the result, the leaves added some really nice texture and offered no offending flavor that I could detect.
I would find out the reason they throw the fruit away before eating them.