This is something that gets discussed a lot - people who’ve gone off a vegetarian diet or ate meat unintentionally sometimes report that they had bad reactions to eating meat, but people say there’s no particular reason that should happen and that your body should never lose the ability to digest protein because it digests the lining of your stomach, for example, on a regular basis. I don’t know where that leaves us. My guess is that a minority of people who go off a vegetarian diet have problems for psychological reasons or something like allergies. Most people probably wouldn’t have difficulty. That said, there’s no particular reason to deny prisoners a vegetarian diet.
I knew a long-time veggie who could tell something was wrong within half an hour of ingesting something as innocuous as butter. I knew her when she was a normal person who could wolf down steak, pork chops & fried chicken like a pro with no ill effects. After 10 years of eating plants and olive oil, animal broth in even small amounts (like from an almost vegetarian soup flavored with chicken fat) would send her sprinting doubled over to the bathroom where she’d enjoy a few hours of the runs & abdominal cramping. It wasn’t psychological. So maybe the protien itself itself isn’t the issue, but the animal fats. She’s reformed somewhat and can do dairy, eggs & fish with no problem.
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Being a prisoner, you lose many of your Constitutional rights. Re the First Amendment, a prisoner does NOT have the right of free speech, to assemble, peaceably or otherwise, etc. The Fourth Amendment doesn’t exactly apply when your cell or person can be searched at any time without warning.
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We have a peculiar unwarranted respect for religious beliefs in this country. We wouldn’t accommodate a prisoner who professed that his well-being depended on having a set of golf clubs to practice with, or a complete set of the works of Mark Twain to read, or a breakfast that consisted of a bagel with cream cheese and freshly squeezed orange juice; yet, we accommodate a professed fealty to an imaginary deity (taking that profession at face value!) and bend over backwards so that the prisoner won’t offend his god by eating a hot dog.
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The authorities only have the obligation to provide nutritious food, not to make it tasty or attractive. Accommodating stated religious preferences is the same as accommodating non-religious preferences. The inmate would rather have this type of food. So what?
Their are limitations on those freedoms for practical reasons. The prisoners’ First Amendment freedoms are restricted but not eliminated entirely. There should be a compelling reason for these things other than “prison isn’t supposed to be nice.”
I wonder how many people posting here have ever eaten a jail meal?
I spent 24 hours in the Kansas City jail after a protest, and if they spent $.25 on the “meal”, they got ripped off. Baloney sandwich on white bread with mustard for lunch and dinner. The worst breakfast cherry pastry I’ve ever had for breakfast.
If that 20 year old was convicted of felony murder the odds are he’ll be in prison for a very long time, if not the rest of his life. The state is 100% responsible for all of his medical needs; it’s in their best interest to keep him as healthy.
Don’t forget that the criminal justice & parole systems tend to look favourably on religious observance (at least if it’s “mainstream”) as a sign of rehabilitation. I disagree with that, but it is what it is.
I hear you get a special diet if you happen to own a pet raven named Jake.
As for specific religious diets, well, I’m going to look forward and create a religion called WTB-ism (aka White Trash Baptist) which adheres to a proscripted diet of beer, cheesburgers, pizza, BBQ Ribs & Ranch Dorito Chips, so in case I need to visit prison in my old age (to pay for medical costs, natch) I’ll be set for the rest of my short life. 
That’s only for prisoners in solitary confinement, isn’t it?
Hmm…I disagree with that. Feeling compassion for certain types of criminals is one thing (esp. drug addicts & such) but our civilization requires some system of punishing violators of the human social compact. Excusing every misdeed, no matter how large, is short-sighted fantasy.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, where do we end up with that, blind and unable to eat. But hey whatever floats your boat.
I personally feel that punishment does not help but just transfers back to society. So if we punish that also comes back to bite us in the area that the sun don’t shine, making the issue worse.
I spent two days in jail after being picked up on Friday night for an unpaid parking (!) ticket. Though increasingly hungry, I could not eat the food I was given. The worst was some bean-based goop–I think it was fava or maybe lima beans. The other prisoners leapt on my tray like starving dogs after I made it clear I wasn’t interested.
Monday morning, I paid my $50 fine, got the hell out of there, retrieved my car, which had been towed, by paying $225, and went directly to McDonald’s and had a Big Mac, a Quarter Pounder, a large fries, and a chocolate milkshake. Best meal I’ve ever had.
I think jails are notoriously worse than prisons for things like that; they have a much more transient population and are run out of a small government (usually county). Prison isn’t better, but it’s at least a little more professional.
Who said anything about that??!? Some criminals get what they deserve, some deserve a lot more but are shown mercy, and some get away scot free. It has nothing to do with spouting pithy Bible quotes, it’s how our society’s code of laws is enforced. Our laws ain’t worth toilet paper if everyone’s able to break the law with zero fear of retribution.
I’d love to hear how your own thought process lead you to believe that. (No demons, please.)
Actually I think it is.
And in cases where the prisoner is simply too dangerous to release back into society? (Not saying they should be tortured, but sometimes rehabilitation is impossible. Charles Manson, for example?)
Putting somebody on a special diet for disciplinary reasons is pretty much the atom bomb of punishment - it’s the last resort you use when nothing else works. It’s definitely not a standard part of being in solitary confinement. (And for the record, solitary confinement isn’t really all that solitary. Prisoners are able to talk to other prisoners.)
The loaf is not tasty. It’s made out of stuff like cabbage and soy beans ground up and baked into a little loaf. It has no seasoning and it’s served at room temperature.
But it is edible. I’ve eaten it and plenty of other employees did as well. Anytime a batch of “loaf” is baked up, there will be people who want to try it just to see what it’s like. At its worst, it’s bland. (And if you eat it warm and put some ketchup on it, it’s not so bad.)
However the loaf is not the worst thing out there. The worst punishment is the shake. This is when you put an entire meal into a big blender and liquify it. You then pour the meal into several cups and serve it. While it’s actually as nutritious as a regular meal it pretty much looks like vomit. I can’t tell you how it tastes, even second hand, because as far as I know nobody ever actually drank it. It looked too horrible for any employee to drink it voluntarily and any prisoner who was put on the shake would just throw it at you rather than drink it.
The state later changed the rules and eliminated the shake. So the worst punishment now is being put on the loaf.
We’re not totally stupid in the prison business. We’re not going to give a prisoner anything he wants just because he says he has a religious need for it.
The basic legal principle is a prisoner is free to have any religious belief he wishes - but his religious practices are subject to regulation. So a prisoner is free to believe his religion requires him to have golf clubs and beer. But that doesn’t mean he actually gets golf clubs and beer.
Be careful what you wish for. “Proscribe” means almost the exact opposite of “Prescribe”. If the above were proscribed you couldn’t have them.
I have it on good authority of someone who spent 200 days in a county jail recently and about 180 of them working in the kitchen. The 22 pods in the building had between 48 and 56 trays sent out on carts 3 times a day, no central chow hall, the inmates ate in their pods or dorms. The menu was a two week rotation.
Breakfast was a, scoop of cereal (4 kinds in rotation,) carton of milk, juice cup or piece of fruit, and two slices of wheat bread.
Some days lunch was scoops of peanut butter and jelly, a bean buritto, or 2 hardboiled eggs, or 4 slices of processed cheese, a mustard packet and slices of bread. A scrap or two of lettuce and a tomato wedge. Sometimes with the bologna, sometimes with the PB&J, had to meet the official requirements of the day.
No pork at all in the building, even the ham looking stuff, hotdogs or and bologna cold cuts at lunch were turkey based. Beef and turkey were real. So said the manufactures packaging.
Strict kosher diets were prepackaged and bought from an outside vendor packed in a little tray like a TV dinner. 4 different ones every day for lunch and dinner, day after day.
One rastafarian got no meat ever, lots of veggies or stew like glop frequently. Dude must have lost a lot of weight.
Diabetics got the same as everyone else, except when dinner had a cookie or fruit served. They got a double portion of whatever was on the menu instead to make up for the calories.
Pregnant women were all housed in one dorm and got 2 trays at every meal.
One gluten free guy got assigned to the kitchen so he could graze on whatever he could fend for himself best as he could manage. The inmates working in the kitchen generally could eat whatever they could scarf down from what was available. A chicken patty sandwich with a slice of motzerella cheese was worth it’s weight in gold.
Sunday dinners were a four week rotation of 1. broiled chicken the size of a pidgen, 2. dried out meatloaf (cooked friday, reheated Sunday), 3. chicken again, 4. a slab of cheap ass grizlled fatty roast beef, repeat.
Some of the civilian cooks are better than others. Into the vast steamers cooking stew for example some added a load of salt and pepper or paprika to give it flavor. Some didn’t.
All in all of a population of 900 (ish) 25 (ish) diabetics, 6 (ish) pregnent woman 2Kosher, and the odd one off of a rasta or medically certifed gluten diet that’s it.
Enough calories to meet nutritional gudelines but pretty bland and uninspired otherwise.
For most inmates serving a sentance longer than weekend of circumstances like a DWI arrest they are eligable for commisarry purchaces. If friends or family put money into an imates account they can purchase everything from to candy bars to powdered coffee and tea.
I’m told crack head soup is; commisarry ramen noodles, rice, liquid cheese, garlic powder if they are lucky and a diced up slim jim mixed in a garbage bag then heated in a microwave is an evening meal.
Wow, that actually sounds nutritious and kind of yummy, better than the bottom-shelf crap I can barely afford to feed myself with lately. Sometimes I’ve even considered robbing a bank so I can receive good food & free healthcare, but…well, there’s probably a downside I haven’t thought of yet.
I’ve posted this before. In my opinion, the worst thing in prison is boredom - a literally mind-numbing routine that goes on day after day and year after year. You see prisoners whose brains almost shut down - they stop thinking and they just follow the daily routine on autopilot with other people telling them what to do.
Well, that diet would be fucking hell on diabetics - seriously carb heavy which is not a good thing. Optimal would be [for 3 meals] 1 protein, 3 lowcarb veg, 1 carb [could be small portion of fruit or a carby veg like potato, beans, corn, rice, a portion of grain like bread]
A double hit of PBJ would really be not good … meatloaf with lots of filler [bread crumbs/rice] would also be not too good.