City's Inmates Get Healthier, Blander Food

The Department of Correction has begun serving New York City’s 14,000 prisoners a healthier diet of fruit, fiber-rich cereals, skim milk and whole wheat bread. Sugar-sweetened beverages are forbidden, and soon unsweetened muffins will replace sweetened ones. Fried foods have been off the menu for years, and has city has drastically reduced the amount of red meat served, placing a greater emphasis on chicken, fish and tofu.

“We have no choice but to eat what they give us. It's bland - so I guess that's healthy,” Rikers inmate Christopher Alberici told the Daily News. Commissioner Martin Horn says the health food isn’t costing the city more; it’s still $2.50 per inmate per day. And Horn predicts the diet will save money in the long run because healthier inmates will be less prone to strokes, heart attacks or diabetic shock on the city's watch.

Of course, Horn isn’t factoring in the cost of putting down prison riots after the umpteenth tofu loaf sends Rikers Island into a rage. And the Daily News gets a great perspective from hardboiled Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who’s famous for feeding dogs better than inmates at his Maricopa County jail. Arpaio thinks $2.50 a day is pure decadence; he spends 40 cents a day per prisoner for food and declares, “You should never eat better in jail than you do on the outside.”