During the summer of 2008 I shed about 20 pounds while serving time at Central Prison, a maximum custody facility in Raleigh, North Carolina. I cut all carbs and sugar from my diet. I ate only meat and vegetables. At six a.m. I was out of bed and stretching with yoga routines I learned from a book. I lifted weights during my lunch break from work in the clothes house. After dinner I played handball for an hour or two. It took about six weeks to meet my goal of 180 pounds. I was 30 and in the best shape of my life.
Now I’m 46 and 245 pounds. I cringe when I look at myself in recent photos, even though I understand how age, genetics, and lack of access to healthy food contributed to me gaining 65 pounds in 16 years.
A month ago I decided to regain control of my health and get back in shape. It didn’t seem hard. I only needed to duplicate what I did years ago: diet and work out. But it’s not working, mainly because prison ain’t what it used to be, and neither am I.
Dropping pounds while incarcerated isn’t impossible, but it’s difficult, given limited food choices. I can’t buy a prescription of Wegovy to stave off hunger or try the Keto diet. I am forced to eat what’s served in the chow hall or to buy what’s sold in the canteen, which is usually unhealthy.
For many years I relied on tasty junk food to supplement the prison food I won’t eat. A Ramen noodle soup with a chopped up summer sausage and a side of Moon Lodge’s The Whole Shebang potato chips was my default meal if the chow hall served something I didn’t like. It’s cheap and quick to make.
To lose weight, I can’t eat any of that. So I resigned to starve myself, which won’t be hard if I don’t eat canteen.
North Carolina prisoners are fond of saying, “It’s a damn shame to go to the chow hall and leave hungry.” As sarcastic as it may sound, the statement is usually true.
For lunch yesterday the kitchen at Neuse Correctional, where I am now housed, served breadless chicken patties, boiled okra, spinach drowned in vinegar, diced peaches, and two slices of stale white bread. I gave the bread away. I tried to trade the chicken patty for spinach to Blue, a guy sitting at my table, but he waved me off.
“I don’t eat that crap, man,” Blue said. Blue is a 60-ish Caucasian guy with 40 years of prison under his belt. “Years ago. I worked in the meatpacking plant at Harnett Correctional, where most of our processed meat is made. I swore off meat my first day on the job, I’m tellin’ ya. They call ’em chicken patties, but ‘chicken’ don’t really mean chicken. It means ‘chicken parts,’ which is the nasty stuff most people throw in the trash.” Blue speared the pale patty with his orange, plastic spork and held it up. A sliver of pinkish slime slid back onto his tray. “Ninety-five percent of this is powders and gels and goops that have never clucked a day in their lives. Might as well call it a cancer patty.”
For the last few years, prisons where I’ve done time served chicken patties at least 5 times a week. Sometimes they mask it on the menu by calling it “Parmesan Chicken.” The hamburger and onion beef patties are no different. Neither is the ground beef. All contains crunchy chunks of gristle that make me gag.
Regardless, I managed to trade the chicken patty to someone for their spinach. People with no money have to eat what they can get. That usually means scavenging for scraps off someone else’s tray.
I abhor vinegar in spinach, but I needed the fiber, so I ate it quickly. I tried to eat the okra, but its slime drooled all the way to my chin and held on, so I never took a bite. I ate the pears in two sporkfuls. That’s how much they gave me.
Aside from processed meat, North Carolina prisons also grow and can the vegetables we eat. Prisoners raise produce on a farm at institutions that used to be called Tillery and Odom. They can vegetables in the cannery at a prison that used to be called Caledonia. The whole agricultural complex, comprised of the three prisons, is now named Roanoke River. Because we grow our own food, one would assume that we get the best, but we don’t. Collard greens are actually stems, no leaves, and taste like wet grass. When we’re served broccoli, we get over-boiled mushy stalks, never the robust broccoli heads. I can only surmise that the state enterprise sells the choice morsels elsewhere while feeding us the scraps.
Those aren’t the only problems with our food. It’s rarely seasoned, often cold, and usually dry. I know people who have found whole worms in the vegetables and rat tails in the meat. Our juice concentrate comes with a warning label, reading: “Known to cause cancer in laboratory animals.”
Who wants to eat that?
Ten minutes after leaving the chow hall, I stood at the canteen window salivating over the sight of Snicker’s bars, Mrs. Freshly’s Strawberry Honey Buns, and Hershey’s Moose Tracks ice cream. I felt like Pookie in “New Jack City” lusting over a crack pipe loaded with a fat $20 rock. My dry lips trembled as I whispered, “It keeps callin’ me, man. I can’t help it. It keeps callin’ me.”
Instead of buying a sugary treat, I bought the only “healthy” products in the canteen: a package of Fisherman’s Paradise Mackerel Fillet in Oil, a Nature Valley Peanut Dark Chocolate Protein Bar, and a small bag of Planter’s Salted Peanuts.
After inhaling the food, I examined the Nutrition Facts on the packages. The mackerel contained 390 milligrams of sodium; the protein bar, 160 milligrams; and the peanuts, 200 milligrams. Sodium causes high blood pressure in people my age. Eating too much of that stuff won’t make me fat, it’ll kill me. The so-called health food in the canteen isn’t so healthy after all.
It was frustrating. Dieting didn’t seem as hard back in the day, and truthfully, it wasn’t.
My man Goose and I like to reminisce about the good ol’ days. In the 1990s and early 2000s we ate scrambled eggs every morning. Biscuits and toast came with a pat of margarine and a glob of jelly. They served coffee with sugar and cream. Lunch and dinner provided a variety of entrées: meatloaf, chicken nuggets, pizza, and freshly battered fried fish. For Sunday dinner we ate roast beef, roast turkey, or fried chicken, along with a little tub of ice cream for dessert. Dieting was easier then because I could eat the good stuff, give away the bad, and still feel satiated.
Looking back on those times is funny, because we complained about the food then. We didn’t know how bad it would get.
We know now.
The turning point came when a frugal governor wanted to decrease spending in prisons, so the state took the coffee and jelly first. That happened in 2009. When they removed the deep fryers from all kitchens shortly after, we knew we were in trouble. No more fried chicken, liver, or fish. Now most of our main courses are cancer patties baked to the consistency of boot leather.
Not only did the quality of our food change, so did the quantity. Servings shrank year after year, prompting many to quip: The state is serving two meals spread across three trays.
Smaller portions coincided with North Carolina’s rising prison population, which peaked at 40,000 prisoners in 2010. That figure doubled from what it was in 1994, when North Carolina adopted mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Right now the state prison system hovers at around 31,000 people, but we aren’t fed any better.
Somewhere down the line, our families became responsible for feeding us through quarterly packages sold by Union Supply and Secure Pak, both prison profiteers. When our families order a $120 package, North Carolina takes a 20 percent kickback. And the food items are not cheap. A pack of duplex cookies, that costs $5 on a quarterly package, costs $1.50 in the onsite canteen. Allowing companies to maximize profits gives the state an interest in making sure prisoners order as many packages as possible.
Seems like a diabolical plot from a movie, right? Starve us in the chow hall, then profit from the only food they allow us to buy? Such practices should be illegal, but incarcerated people aren’t covered by consumer protection laws. In fact, many states make sure we are specifically excluded from them, so the government can treat us how it wants.
Some states treat prisoners fairer. I recently connected with a woman whose friend is serving 25-to-life in a New York State prison. Each month she orders him 40 pounds of food from a vendor in the free world, including fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, wheat bread, and drinks. The food can’t be mailed from her home. It must be shipped directly from an approved vendor who pays the state nothing at all.
After hearing about it, my mouth watered at the thought of crunching raw broccoli heads instead slurping their boiled, mushy stalks. If only North Carolina would take a page from New York’s prison policy book.
The food a person eats can be fuel for good health or the catalyst for sickness. The processed food we’re served is linked to cancer. Sugary foods in the canteen causes diabetes. No matter what we eat, we’re constantly at risk, by no fault of our own. Healthy food choices don’t exist in prison.
If people ingest vegetables regularly, they can look slim and fit. Ingesting chips and honey buns makes them round an fluffy.
Quite literally, you are what you eat.
I keep telling myself that people in the real world go through the same struggles, despite their access to food. Many can’t afford to buy healthy food. Losing weight is hard for everyone, no matter where they live.
So instead of griping about what I don’t have or can’t buy, I’ll focus on portion control. Combining eating less with exercise should help me drop weight. I’ll go to bed hungry, but in a year’s time I’ll be slimmer. Somehow it seems worth the sacrifice.