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Short Stuff: Prison Food · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to short stuff, the shortest stuff around.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh, there's Chuck, there's Jerry over there, and uh,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this is short stuff in case you didn't catch it
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the first time around. Right, let's talk about prison food. Yeah,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: let's so prison food. Saying prison food is sort of
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: like a joke, like an airplane meal that someone might
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: use casually is to represent really bad food. I think
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: prisoners would literally kill for an airplane food a while.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: But there are more than two million people incarcerated in
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the United States, and that's a lot of people to feed. Uh,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and we're not feeding them very well. And there are
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: groups out there that advocates for prisoners who are on
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the case and have been for a while trying to
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: get better food to prisoners. Uh. And this woman Loretta Refit,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: who works for she's a researcher for Prison Voice Washington. Um,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: she makes a good point. She's saying, listen, we're not
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: saying prisoners don't want fle mignon, they don't want luxury foods.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: They just want food that's food, real food, real food,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and that also isn't like um, nutritionally deficit or deficient,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: you know. And let's get something out of the way.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: If you're like, well, they're prisoners, Who cares if they
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: have tasty food or something like that, or something that's
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: not as high in sodium. Who cares? They're in prison.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: They're not supposed to be coddled. Um. There's actually really
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: good answer to that, and that is that if we
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: if we are taking care of prisoners in a certain
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: way in prison, and again there's two million of them
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: in in the United States alone, if they're eating terribly
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: over the course of years, they're also developing the kinds
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of chronic illnesses that come with eating terribly for years,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: like UM, heart disease and COPD and just about everything
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: you can think of diabetes, UM. And then when they
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: get out, they need healthcare or they need healthcare while
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: they're in there too. And so whether they're on government
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: assisted healthcare on the outside or prison healthcare on the inside,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you the guy who doesn't care whether they get good
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: food or not on the inside is paying for that.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: And a really easy way to get around that is
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: for them to just be served nutritious food to begin with.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: It's way cheaper than paying for healthcare on the back end. Yeah,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: there was a study done in two thousand twelve that
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: reported that sevent inmates and state and federal prisons and
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: jails are obese, overweight, obese, or morbidly obese. UM. And
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I guess it is easy to say, like why give
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: them good food? They are in prison, we should give
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: them gross tasting food. But like you said, it's not.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: It's one of these things like if you think about
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the big picture, if one of your arguments is tax dollars,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: tax dollars, why am I paying for this? You're gonna
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: be paying for more down the line, So maybe give
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: them some fruits and vegetables every now and then or
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: on a daily basis, even like human beings. And I mean,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: if you're talking tax dollars and you're paying for their food,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Like the amount of money that's spent on prisoners, if
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: you look at it overall for the entire nation, I
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: can't find that data. By the way, there's no there's
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: no data that says this is how much the US
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: spends on food for prisoners every year. There's nothing like that.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: It's more by state, even by jurisdiction. But I've seen
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: something between a dollar twenty a day to about three
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: dollars a day per prisoner. The average American eats on
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: about eight dollars and twelve cents a day, So there's
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: a very small amount of money being spent on prisoner food,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: which is one problem. But then the second problem that
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: seems to be evolving over the years or has evolved recently,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: is there used to be prison kitchens, Like the food
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: was prepared there in the prison, and so that meant
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: that the prison could kind of cater more toward inmates,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: um than they can now where the food preparation is
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: almost exclusively outsourced to companies like Era Mark or in Washington,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: there's one called UMU Corrections Institutions Food uh, and that's
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: just a food service. So it's prepared off site, and
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: it's just gotten really really bad, Like there's no such
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: thing as fresh food anymore. It's all reheated in like
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: a tray basically. All right, well, let's come back in
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: a minute. We'll talk a little bit more about that
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and some of the other complications of feeding two million
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: incarcerated individuals right after this. Alright, so it is tough
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: to feed that many people and keep expenses in check.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I think anyone will admit, you can't just have an
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: open check book and just a it's been whatever it takes. UM.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: There are budgets to keep in mind, and it's complicated
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: when you think about UM. And this is something I
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: don't think many people think about, but dietary needs, dietary
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: restrictions UM based on your own body or religious grounds,
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  Speaker 1: whether it's kosher or halal or gluten free. Like I
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: never thought about what if you're gluten or dairy free
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: and you're in prison, you probably just go hungry a
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: lot or live with consistent intestinal distress, which would really suck,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: you know, like that's that's ah. I saw a quote
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: it's like prisons punishment enough, you know, like this doesn't
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: need to be heaped on top of it, something like
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: persistent intestinal distress. You know. Yeah, I mean it's you're
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: certainly not making for UM more obedient prisoners if someone
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: is always sick. No, but I did look up. I
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: wondered if there if there was a reason that UM
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: that prisons deprived inmates nutrition going to lead to keep
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: them like docile, or if it has the opposite effect.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: But apparently one of the big UM, one of the
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  Speaker 1: big problems, at least in Washington. But I would suspect.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: It's probably nationwide. Is a deficiency of protein. There's just
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: not enough protein and proteins pretty important. It's one of
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: the big ones that you really need. Um. So there's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: less protein. The protein that is typically served to prisoners
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: is hyper processed. Um. There's no fresh vegetables or anything
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: like that. It's all like pre canned or cooked or
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: frozen or something like that. And it's heavy in salt
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and sometimes sugar too. Just basically the worst food you
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: could possibly eat, like like junk food made from filler. Yeah.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: And if you are if you do have dietary restrictions
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and that have health implications, like let's say you are
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: gluten free or have celiac, um, it will just take
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: whatever has gluten off of your trade. They don't say like, well,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: how would you like this instead, and you just get
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: less food. Um. That sucks, man, Yeah, it does. There
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: was And you talked about how much they're spending Amrrico,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Pa County, Arizona is very famous for Sheriff Joe and
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: all the news he makes. UM and apparently their Thanksgiving meal. Um.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: There's a nonprofit journalism group called the Marshall Project that
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: works on criminal justice issues. They did some investigating and
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: found that the Thanksgiving meal in Merrico, PA County cost
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: fifty six cents per person. It was a cup of carrots,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: a cup of mashed potatoes, and then five ounces of
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: turkey soil, sorry, turkey soy casserole. Turkey soil. Probably not
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: too far off, I agree. One of the people who
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: are with one of the prison projects said, if you
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: look at a can of organic cat food and the
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: label of the ingredients, and you compare it to a
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: lot of the food that served in prisons, the organic
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: cat food is preferable to the prison food, which is
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: fairly shameful. But what about the honey buns. There's the
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: honey buns. I also saw a recent one about a
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: type of potato chip that is, um apparently so good
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: that prisoners go crazy after they get out of prison
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: because you can't find it outside of prison. It's made
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: specifically for prisons. It's called the Whole Shebangs and um.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: This company has caught on recently that people really want
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: this outside of prison, so now they sell it on
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: their website as well. But it's really expensive on their website. Um,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: but it's just supposedly the greatest potato chips you can
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: you can never have. It's a combination of salt and
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: vinegar and barbecue flavor. Well, but again, I mean I
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: made the if you haven't heard Our Prisons episode, that's
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the reference to honey buns. Apparently that's a big that
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: have a lot of trade value. But um, jokes aside,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: any buns and even the greatest potato chips ever still
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: junk food. You know, Yeah, yeah, honey buns and greatest
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: potato chips ever definitely still do qualify as junk food. Agreed. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: And again you know it's uh. And I know this
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: is a divisive topic about how people treat prisoners. There
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: are a lot of people think that they are pampered
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: and aren't you know they should all be in hard
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: labor camps eating junk food. But again, if you really
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: look at the big picture, and if you're worried about
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: your tax dollars and where they're going, Um, you're spending
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: a lot more on healthcare by feeding them bad food
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: than just giving them some. And again, they're not asking
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: for filet mignon, but fruits and vegetables, real proteins that
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: isn't just like a heaping of beans. Yeah, just to
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: put in real numbers. The Prison Policy Initiative, which is
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: a watchdog group, they did a study and they found
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: that correctional facilities spend about six times more on healthcare
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: than they do on food. And again, if you just
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: raise is the quality of food up, it would definitely
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: not be six times more, you know, I do know. Yeah,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: you got anything else for this episode of short stuff, Chuck,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else. I'm just gonna go sit down
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: and have some turkey ends and soil, turkey soil protein. Yeah.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Turkey ends was one of the ingredients in Turkey Alla King,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: which I tried to look up what that was, and
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: the only thing I could find that wasn't you know
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the country of turkey ends, blank um, was that it's
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: the ends of a turkey roll, which in and of
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: itself doesn't sound like much of a turkey anyway. Although
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you a turkey roll is really good,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: is it? Oh? Yeah? The one they come they're super frozen,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: solid as a brick in a foil pan, and you
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: put the whole thing in the oven for like three hours.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: But when it comes out, buddy, salty, I bet it's
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: it's tasty, though you shouldn't need them very often. As
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: a matter of fact that I should probably not endorse
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it at all. Well, at any rate. That's the end
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: of this short stuff. Hope it changed your mind about
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: things until next time. Short Stuff out. Stuff you Should
• 11:17
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• 11:19
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