{"id":4902,"date":"2025-10-15T15:16:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/4902\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T15:16:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:16:07","slug":"the-trap-of-floridas-prison-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/4902\/","title":{"rendered":"The trap of Florida\u2019s prison food"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re an incarcerated person in Florida, you\u2019ll find yourself faced with an almost impossible decision every meal. Option one: You could eat the free, unhealthy meals served in the chow hall, which have degraded in quality so much in the past two decades that you could argue they\u2019re a health hazard<\/a>. Option two: You could stretch your limited budget to buy a Pepsi, tater tots, four chocolate chip cookies, and a double cheeseburger combo for $25.99 from the private company iCare out of the same chow hall. Or, option 3: You could use that same limited budget to visit the canteen in front of the housing dormitory to buy a buffalo chicken sandwich, a Coke, and a bag of chips for $7.46 from Trinity, another private company.<\/p>\n

All three options line the pockets of for-profit companies that help the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) feed its prison population.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the FDC has attempted to transform how it feeds its residents by selling them \u201cbetter tasting\u201d fast food options. But incarcerated people often can\u2019t afford these meals, and they can\u2019t afford the impact on their health either. Prisoners should not be funding their own incarceration, especially through food that leads to diabetes<\/a>, heart disease, and other diet-related health issues.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always like this. When I was first incarcerated in 1991, Florida State Prison had its own farm and livestock operation located about an hour west of Jacksonville, which provided pounds of fresh beef and chicken parts to prisons. When I was at Martin Correctional Institution in 1995, I was a part of the morning kitchen crew. We would wake up at 3 a.m. to prepare breakfast and lunch for over 1,500 prisoners. We had an organized system with linemen, salad preps, grill cooks, bakers, butchers, and storeroom office clerks. We were trained in food preparation and safety and learned how to cook everything from scratch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prior to my arrest, I worked as a chef assistant, so I used these skills to cut up various parts of beef for all types of dishes served on the prison menu: beef stew, hamburgers, pizza, strip steaks, and creamed beef. The linemen and cleaning crew were paid 20 cents an hour, while skilled workers were paid 28 cents an hour. This gave the kitchen an air of professionalism. Everyone worked together to produce the best meal possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, around the mid-1990s, the FDC closed its farm for reasons that were never made public or known to the prison population. The change this caused in our food was felt immediately. We began receiving processed meat patties, pre-mixed ground beef, pre-made pizza, and hot dogs that tasted like rubber. Everything came with heat-and-serve or boil-water-and-stir instructions. This eliminated the need for paid, skilled workers in the kitchen. Prison administrators assigned people to \u201cwork the kitchen\u201d not because they had food and safety experience, but only to fill positions.<\/p>\n

During this transition, skilled workers had the option to leave or stay in their current positions without pay. Because of my love for the culinary arts, I and many other skilled workers stayed. But, as time went on, this free but forced labor led to poor-quality food production. Now, the kitchen is known for causing food poisoning and attracting rats, roaches, and mold. The sense of professionalism we once felt working in the kitchen had vanished.<\/p>\n

The FDC\u2019s current statewide menu<\/a> is \u201cspecifically designed\u201d to provide an average of 2,620 calories per day and claims to \u201cmeet the nutritional needs of the inmate population,\u201d in collaboration with Aramark Correctional Services, which provides food to around 450 U.S. prisons and jails. However, to artificially meet health requirements such as calorie minimums, these meals are often packed with refined carbohydrates<\/a>. A typical dinner served in the chow hall consists of processed meat patties; carbs such as rice, pasta, beans, instant potatoes, or bread; boiled mixed vegetables; an apple or orange; and cake. Once a week, a chicken leg quarter is served.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These carb-heavy, low-protein, ultra-processed meals are the only free options available to us, and the taste ranges from bland to horrible. Prison officials and food service supervisors also avoid eating any of the food that is brought in and cooked for the prison population. As stated in a 2020 report<\/a> by Impact Justice, prison meals are \u201call typically high in salt, sugar, and refined carbohydrates and low in essential nutrients\u2014a diet that for decades everyone else has been advised to avoid.\u201d According to the U.S. Department of Justice, people in prison are 150% more likely<\/a> than the general population to report histories of diabetes or high blood pressure, and nearly 1 in 4 incarcerated people have hypertension\u2014all health conditions that are exacerbated or caused by the unhealthy food options behind bars.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the FDC introduced iCare, Fresh Favorites, and Trinity into the equation. These private, for-profit companies sell food to prison populations and offer services for friends and family to \u201cstay connected\u201d to their loved ones in prison by sending them price-gouged snacks and fresh meals. The benefits from this implementation to the FDC are clear: more money to run their costly prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To make their meals enticing, companies like iCare and Fresh Favorites\u2014both owned by Aramark, which runs our prison kitchens\u2014sell nostalgic fast foods that many incarcerated people haven\u2019t seen or eaten in years. Here at the Everglades Correctional Institution, where I moved to in 2018, iCare offers foods like double cheeseburgers, fries, tater tots, and pizzas, which our families can purchase for us online. We can also order fast food items ourselves through the Fresh Favorites app that was recently developed for prison tablets.\u00a0 These foods are often double or even triple the price compared to buying them at a typical grocery store. For example, a single Twix ice cream bar purchased through iCare costs $4.29, while you could buy a pack of six at Walmart for around the same price.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family puts together extra money so that I can eat iCare,\u201d said E. Pe\u00f1a, a longtime Everglades resident who is using his first initial.<\/p>\n

To compete with iCare and Fresh Favorites, Trinity, another private food company that runs FDC\u2019s prison canteens, introduced its own junk food options for purchase, such as buffalo chicken sandwiches, pork sandwiches, sodas, and chips. Though more appetizing than standard prison meals, the foods offered by these private companies are similarly unhealthy and unaffordable for most prisoners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go to the canteen now, the prices are so high that you can only buy a few items at a time, so you scratch what little money you do get from your family,\u201d said Abdus Salaam, who has been incarcerated for over 30 years.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s unclear what long-term effects will result from the introduction of private company fast food options to Florida\u2019s prisons, study<\/a> after study<\/a> has linked increased fast food consumption to health issues such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and shortened lifespans. In the absence of healthy, accessible prison meals, predatory deals between the FDC and private, for-profit food companies lure prison populations into paying for their own incarceration while damaging their health and shortening their lives in the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: While Prism often uses the phrase \u201cincarcerated people,\u201d this personal essay sometimes uses the word \u201cprisoner,\u201d per the writer\u2019s preference.<\/p>\n

The Right to Write (R2W) project is an editorial initiative where Prism works with incarcerated writers to share their reporting and perspectives across our verticals and coverage areas. Learn more about R2W and how to pitch\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Editorial Team:
Rikki Li, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor<\/p>\n

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