February 19, 2008
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.”
|
This is great news for the prison guards as the feces the inmates will throw at them will be softer and in turn makes it harder to aim.
The issue is not the quality, but the quantity.
All prison inmates should be limited to at most 1,500 calories per day.
For people living a sedentary lifestyle, there is no need more calories. An added benefit is there will no chance of type II diabetes or other gluttony related diseases, AND the days of ex cons being jacked to the max will be over.
No one will be benching 400 pounds on that diet.
Maybe instead of cigarettes as barter, they can use Twinkies.
Muffin bottoms for the lot of 'em.
I wish people would stop quoting that douchebag Arpaio; he's great at getting his face on TV by exploiting populist resentment, not so great at actual law enforcement.
The issue is that awful prepackaged institutional food; un-sugared whole wheat dreck is no better than wonderbread and bologna. Make them cook real food made out of real food.
Arpaio for president!
It's prison not a country club! If you don't like it don't come back!
Rikers is a jail, not a prison.
Anyone can go to jail.
You wait in jail for your court date, if you couldn't get bail. Some are in jail awaiting transfer to prison or serving short sentences, but must are innocent and not proven guilty.
You serve time in prison after a conviction.
Some time ago Rikers' officials stopped politicians from making this "mistake" over and over again during election year visits.
Rikers is a jail, not a prison.
Anyone can go to jail.
You wait in jail for your court date, if you couldn't get bail. Some are in jail awaiting transfer to prison or serving short sentences, but must are innocent and not proven guilty.
You serve time in prison after a conviction.
Some time ago Rikers' officials stopped politicians from making this "mistake" over and over again during election year visits.
Arpaio is great at getting his fat ass on TV and talking in soundbites. Total piece of shit.
They're lucky they're not getting that gruel they seved in The Matrix.
I don't see a problem with this. If it isn't costing the taxpayers any money, why not? Less illnesses that the guards have to deal with.
No one will be benching 400 pounds on that diet.
Lean and mean, unlike their predecessors these guys will be able to bend their arms. What was it they called those metrosexuals in the movie 300? It was something like "make them look like they lived off the land, in the wild, all sinewy and ripped."