Prison Food — Ask the Inmate
Institutional food inside correctional facilities is designed to meet minimum nutritional requirements at the lowest possible cost. For most inmates the quality, variety, and quantity fall well short of what they were accustomed to on the outside. Understanding how to supplement institutional meals through commissary, how to request dietary accommodations for medical or religious reasons, and how to make the best of the food environment inside are practical survival skills. This section covers what inmates can expect from the institutional food program, what commissary food options are typically available and which ones are worth buying, how tuna and mackerel packages became the informal currency of correctional facilities, how to request a special diet, and what families can send from outside to supplement their loved one's nutrition. The guidance here is honest and practical coming from people who ate institutional food for years and figured out how to make it work. See also our sections on Commissary and Inmate Care Packages
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Nothing inside is quite as dramatic as what movies depict, and the food is no exception. What you actually get in a county jail like Pearl River is nutritionally adequate but aggressively uninteresting. Menus are designed by nutritionists to meet minimum daily requirements for calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fat at the lowest possible cost. The result is food that keeps people alive and reasonably healthy without any effort toward making it enjoyable. The biggest complaint from virtually every
Read moreThe food is basic, and that is about the most generous way to put it. Every facility is required to meet minimum nutritional standards, typically around 2,000 calories per day, with meals planned by dieticians to ensure a basic balance of protein, carbohydrates, and other nutrients. Meeting the minimum standard and being appetizing are two very different things, and most correctional food achieves the former while falling well short of the latter. The quality varies significantly by facility
Read moreTaking food out of the cafeteria is against the rules, but enforcement is inconsistent. Some COs will frisk inmates leaving the chow hall and confiscate food without filing a report. Enforcement typically increases when new staff arrive or after a facility-wide shakedown turns up hoarded food. When a cell search turns up a significant quantity of food that has been stockpiled, administration tends to respond by tightening enforcement across the board, at least temporarily. These cycles of loose and
Read moreInmates receive three meals a day across all facility types, but the quality and variety vary considerably depending on where someone is incarcerated. Federal facilities generally have the best food in the system. Meals are planned by nutrition professionals and meet minimum caloric, protein, and carbohydrate standards established by the Bureau of Prisons. The food is institutional but consistent, and the nutritional baseline is maintained more reliably than in other systems. State prisons fall somewhere in the middle.
Read moreAbsolutely. Inmates are fed three meals per day albeit not always the "tastiest". These meals are engineered by a nutritionist that are guided by a minimum standard set for nutritional value and calories.
Read moreThe short answer is "generally no". But the food is far from gourmet. In the county jails and state prisons, the meals are simple and heavy on carbohydrates (breads, pasta) and lots of weird looking bologna sandwiches. In the federal system, the meals are on a national schedule, for instance Wednesday lunch is "burger day". All things considered, the food is bearable, BUT it's nice to have money in your commissary to be able to supplement the food an inmate
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