Reforming Jail Food

[Charles Ramsey]

I just spent 35 days in the Orange County Florida Jail. The jail refused to accommodate my food allergies and I lost 30 pounds. I am interested in any thoughts on what jail food should be especially from 7th day Adventist. They offered me the opportunity to see a chaplain so I could have been given a religious based diet. Breakfast consisted of oatmeal or grits or special K with a pastry. Lunch was 2 slices of lunch meat 2 slices of fake cheese and 4 slices of bread and 2 cookies. Dinner was pasta or rice with fake meat cooked carrots or green beans and cabbage. A nurse said in the past if you had a wheat allergy they would send it down to the kitchen and an alternative would be provided. But too many people complained about food they didn't like so now the jail does not accommodate any allergies. The food industry hydrogenates oil because bacteria can't eat it. It coats the food and the food stays fresher on the shelf. Humans also have trouble digesting the stuff so the body just stores it. This is why we have record obesity. At the age of 46 my body rebeled and I can no longer digest the stuff. This is not natural food and it needs to go. Fake meat and cheese is hydrogenated oil. I told them stop giving me fake meat and give me real beans. I would go down the list of the top 10 allergies and force the jails to provide alternatives. A technical distinction needs to be made here. An intolerance is not an allergy. With an allergy you can eat the food and it harms you. With an intolerance the food will not stay in the stomach. The best known intolerance is syrup of ipecac. I was literally in the belly of the beast. This will not be an easy fight.

 

[SeventhFisherofMen]

I just spent 35 days in the Orange County Florida Jail. The jail refused to accommodate my food allergies and I lost 30 pounds. I am interested in any thoughts on what jail food should be especially from 7th day Adventist. They offered me the opportunity to see a chaplain so I could have been given a religious based diet. Breakfast consisted of oatmeal or grits or special K with a pastry. Lunch was 2 slices of lunch meat 2 slices of fake cheese and 4 slices of bread and 2 cookies. Dinner was pasta or rice with fake meat cooked carrots or green beans and cabbage. A nurse said in the past if you had a wheat allergy they would send it down to the kitchen and an alternative would be provided. But too many people complained about food they didn't like so now the jail does not accommodate any allergies. The food industry hydrogenates oil because bacteria can't eat it. It coats the food and the food stays fresher on the shelf. Humans also have trouble digesting the stuff so the body just stores it. This is why we have record obesity. At the age of 46 my body rebeled and I can no longer digest the stuff. This is not natural food and it needs to go. Fake meat and cheese is hydrogenated oil. I told them stop giving me fake meat and give me real beans. I would go down the list of the top 10 allergies and force the jails to provide alternatives. A technical distinction needs to be made here. An intolerance is not an allergy. With an allergy you can eat the food and it harms you. With an intolerance the food will not stay in the stomach. The best known intolerance is syrup of ipecac. I was literally in the belly of the beast. This will not be an easy fight.

wow can you share any experiences or advice on how to survive that environment?

 

[Diamond7]

I am interested in any thoughts on what jail food should be especially from 7th day Adventist.

College students and prisoners eat the same food. My son did some work for the company that provides food for the prison system. The people I talk to say they buy a lot of their food through the prison store. Or if they are willing to work in the kitchen they can get extra food. Sometimes to bargain or sell to others.

Of course the company claims the problem is that the people who prepare the food are not trained. So the issue has to do with the workers and not the food itself. When I was in school I always got to be good friends with the people that prepare the food. So they would take good care of me. That does not work in the army though. Even when your on KP you still get the same food everyone else gets.

There is a bittersweet irony that the food is less than desireable, yet it still has a lot of bargaining power.

 

[Michie]

3 Cooks in Prison Honed Creativity with Drab Ingredients–Now Out, Award-Winning Chef And Businessmen

“There are geniuses in there,” said 2-time James Beard Award winner, Keith Corbin, referring to incarcerated men and their ability to cook with the most lifeless, flavorless ingredients imaginable. Corbin spent 10 years in prison himself, and combined with his career as an award-winning chef at...

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