An interview with J! Recorded before J's move to a new facility, this episode explores the complexities of feeding people in prison, the realities that cause people to be persistently hungry even when federally mandated nutritional requirements are being met, and the content (and quantities) of foods on your tray for a typical meal, the multi-layered truth about "3 hots and a cot" guaranteed, the gratitude that comes from people who appreciate being fed, and the common practice of a single third-party contractor that provides both chow hall food AND commissary items.
Whew!! It's a packed episode.
Time Markers:
2:59 A Quick Update on J
4:30 Good morning! How are you?
7:00 Three Hots and a Cot
11:57 The Long Wait in the Hot Box
16:00 How do you eat when there's a Lockdown?
19:35 Whether you are 6'5" or 5'2", no matter what your metabolism is like...
20:30 A typical tray, a single slice
27:00 In the news recently, pics of prison trays
30:00 Take your vitamins...if you can afford them from commissary
33:10 Depression, Anxiety, and the Connection to Food
Intro/Outro MUSIC CREDIT:
The Fool, original recording music and lyrics by J. Bloom © 2022.
For the full song, visit the PrisonCare, Inc. YouTube Channel:
(theme music outro, “The Fool,” by incarcerated artist J. Bloom © 2022, used with permission)
“I’ll wait. I'll wait until I break.”
An interview with J! Recorded before J's move to a new facility, this episode explores the complexities of feeding people in prison, the realities that cause people to be persistently hungry even when federally mandated nutritional requirements are being met, and the content (and quantities) of foods on your tray for a typical meal, the multi-layered truth about "3 hots and a cot" guaranteed, the gratitude that comes from people who appreciate being fed, and the common practice of a single third-party contractor that provides both chow hall food AND commissary items.
Whew!! It's a packed episode.
Time Markers:
2:59 A Quick Update on J
4:30 Good morning! How are you?
7:00 Three Hots and a Cot
11:57 The Long Wait in the Hot Box
16:00 How do you eat when there's a Lockdown?
19:35 Whether you are 6'5" or 5'2", no matter what your metabolism is like...
20:30 A typical tray, a single slice
27:00 In the news recently, pics of prison trays
30:00 Take your vitamins...if you can afford them from commissary
33:10 Depression, Anxiety, and the Connection to Food
Intro/Outro MUSIC CREDIT:
The Fool, original recording music and lyrics by J. Bloom © 2022.
For the full song, visit the PrisonCare, Inc. YouTube Channel:
(theme music outro, “The Fool,” by incarcerated artist J. Bloom © 2022, used with permission)
“I’ll wait. I'll wait until I break.”
{ 0:40 }
SJ: Hello, friends. This time on the PrisonCare Podcast, we are sharing an interview on the phone with J, and I'm just letting you know, this was from before everything went sideways for him. So this was recorded just a week or so before all the incidents that led up to his transfer to a different facility.
So, we are talking about getting fed in prison, and we're talking about persistent hunger that is reported by so many incarcerated people. And yet, we know that there are nutritional standards that are in place for the prison kitchens. So, what's up with the food that's actually put on your tray, what's up with the actual experience, the lived experience of incarcerated people who are receiving those trays of food? What do we do w,ith the idea that prison is pretty cushy in the US because you're guaranteed a place to sleep, and, "3 Hots and a cot," right? Three meals a day is a whole lot better than having nothing on the outside.
{ 1:54 }
And so why on Earth would we be talking about persistent hunger inside prison. But there is this odd element of the lived experience of many people in prison, that they experience a persistent sense of hunger, in spite of the standards that are in place in the United States for prison nutrition.
So, we're going to talk with J about, first of all, just the the realities of what he experienced in the first prison, where he lived for five years, and it is slightly different, from what I've heard so far, in the new prison where he lives now, and we will do an interview with him down the road about that.
He is doing well, finding his footing, I guess she could say, in his new prison neighborhood. We're not quite ready to put him through the added stress of an interview.
{ 2:59 }
He is, he is really doing excellent recovery work, but the last month and half took a lot out of him, and, to be quite honest, took a lot out of me as well. And that's part of the lived experience that a lot of us on the outside wouldn't know anything about: what the difficulties of movement, and changes, and lockdowns, and problems within a prison, what all of those things do to the supportive family members who are on the outside. Not something we think about very often.
I will be putting my thoughts together for an episode that specifically looks at that. This is another piece of the prison neighborhood people groups who are forgotten or invisible much of the time:
{ 3:59 }
and that's, that's the supportive loved ones of an incarcerated individual, 'cause it does stuff to you.
Anyway, that's for another episode. Today, we're talking food! And so, in a moment here, we're going to pick up with our phone call that took place with J back in early June, I believe...late May, or early June of 2023, and we're going to look at this question of persistent hunger that is reported from incarcerated people, in spite of the nutritional standards that US prisons have to adhere to.
Here we go. Good morning, J, how are you?
J:
Good morning! I'm doing quite well, thank you, how are you?
SJ:
I am doing wel,l as well, and it's very nice to be doing an interview. It's funny, 'cause I was thinking, right before you called this morning, I was thinking about how incredibly nervous I was the first time that we scheduled an interview.
J:
Yeah, same!
SJ:
...and it was like, oh my gosh, I think I was, I was in here with everything in place, ready, like, two hours before you were able to call. (laughter) And I had all these butterflies in my stomach. I'm like, what if this doesn't work? What if the microphone won't pick him up? What if this is just, like, too awkward, and we don't know how to talk on the
J:
As if there's some, like, studio exec breathing down your neck, watching you do it.
SJ:
I know, right? I'm at my house. Oh, well...
{ 5:23 }
J:
There's deadlines, you know, and I have a meeting with Tokyo in an hour so, I gotta, you know...(laughter)
SJ:
Exactly. So thank you for being such a fundamental part of this journey, and for all of your willingness to share your life with other people so that they can learn things that they would never know otherwise.
J:
Well, from my perspective here, not allowing me to, like, just be buried and forgotten...that is one of the biggest gifts anyone could give another person. So, thank you for, despite my circumstances, and how I brought them upon myself, and on you, you're still including me, believing in me, and letting me do stuff like this, and letting my story matter beyond just the cautionary tale.
SJ:
Yeah. Yeah. { 6:18 } It really does matter. And to our listeners, we thank you for being a part of this journey, and for being willing to learn things that are uncomfortable, and that are really easy to ignore or forget about, and instead you guys tune in every week and you are letting your entire paradigm be shifted and you're beginning to share it with others too. And that is so important. And we, we just, we can't thank you enough for the way you're starting conversations where you live, and where you work, and where you hang out, and you're beginning to say things to people like, "Did you know that the suicide rate among Corrections Officers in the United States is 3 a week? That there are three Corrections Officers who take their own lives every week in the US.? That's like, crazy," and you're saying that to people, and their jaws are dropping. And they're saying where you, where you hearing this stuff. So, yeah. Thank you, please keep it up.
Okay. But that's not what we're talking about today, food, right?
J:
Food. Or the lack thereof...yeah, we'll get to that, I guess.
SJ:
So, all right there is a, there is a, an expression I have heard so many times out here, when you ask people, what's your impression of how food works in prison, and people say, "People who are incarcerated get three hots and a cot every day, right?" Three hot meals and a place to sleep. And that's a pretty great deal, in a lot of people's minds. Especially when you look at the homeless population, in the U.S.,
{ 7:57 }
the amount of people who experience food scarcity every single day. People say, "Hey, in prison, you got it made, man, and there's people who probably commit a crime to go back to prison, just so that they can have guaranteed food. But it's a bit more complex than that, right?
J:
It is, it is, I mean it's free everything basically, except for all the stuff you have to buy. So that that is true. That's the problem with a lot of these stereotypes. Regardless of which category you're talking about, they're based in not the whole truth, but, but a portion of the truth, and so it's difficult, because that's just not the whole picture. And that's the part that gets lost here. There's this much bigger scope here, much bigger spectrum. So
{ 8:49 }
SJ:
So, let's broaden that scope, and let's talk about people who are actually pursuing rehabilitation, right? Because that's kind of the backbone of why PrisonCare exists. And the backbone of this podcast is leaning into a significant number of human beings, who are currently serving prison sentences, who are absolutely committed to changing their lives, to take responsibility for themselves, and who are owning their own rehabilitative process, right? (J:Yeah) And who need support in order to do that. And they're not looking to just maintain their dysfunctional, destructive lifestyle in whatever ways are easiest. They're looking to do the work.
What is the bigger picture of prison food and nutrition, and its impact on your life and rehabilitation and all that in the facility where you are living?
J:
Ok, good. That's a good point to make...in my current experience. and I haven't lived in multiple persons yet, so, well, hopefully, I'll never have to live in multiple (laughter)...So yeah, my... I know it is better in some places. I also know it is much worse in other places. I've met a lot of different people from different walks and so...
But, in my experience, the food situation is, they follow these guidelines, you know, basic food nutrition science within the last decade or two, ummm, and these nutritional guidelines they try and meet, to where you get a certain percentage of, you know, your protein or carbohydrates and your fats. But first of all, the science of nutrition is evolving all the time, and, and we're understanding things better. Like, fat was "bad," you know, ten, fifteen years ago, and now we're realizing there's all kinds of stuff, that actually fats are essential to living and having a healthy metabolism and so forth.
But then, on top of that, you have certain budget requirements that the kitchen is supposed to meet, right? And so, that, right there, is enough to make them cut corners here or there, or replace this item with maybe a cheaper option that also has the side effect of having less nutritional significance.
What we end up with, most of our meals consist of simple carbohydrates that can maybe make you feel full, like pasta or something, that ultimately don't do a lot for you health-wise. And that really is consistently the bulk of our meals, cuz even when it comes down to it, even when, you know...they're required to give us X-amount of vegetables every day, at least two of the meals have to have some kind of veggie on the tray. But those veggies have to be cooked to a certain temperature before they are allowed to be served. Right? Because of safety rules and what not.
{ 11:57 }
However, all the food gets prepped so early in advance, including the vegetables that, yes, they get cooked and they get hooked to temp, but then, by the time they start serving, they've just been sitting in the hot box so long and steaming that they are very grey, where they were once green. And as most of us understand, that kind of means most of the life and vitality has left, and you're basically eating fiber, you know, at best, but there's no real vitamins there.
That's just, like, one example of what happens to our diet. It starts out with these guidelines. It starts out with the structure, but then to meet that and then maintain it, there's just a lot that falls by the wayside.
{ 12:46 }
SJ:
Okay, so let's, let's pull way, way, way back. And let me let me do the view from thirty thousand feet above, right? So, in your experience, and from what I've read this is, this is common in most of the
facilities...the prison kitchen is typically run by a third-party contractor, right? So this is somebody that the state, or that the private prison company has hired. And there are a couple of companies that run the prison kitchens in a whole lot of states. So, this is a very, very large industry, and it's a very removed industry. We're not talking about like, people who live in the town close to the prison, who work at the prison kitchen rather than working at the Family diner up the road, right? We're talking about, like, big corporate contracts involved here. So there's tons of bureaucracy.
So these organizations come in, but then they also typically have prison residents, whose job it is to work in the kitchen. Is that how it works at your facility, too?
J:
Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, they have to have a small small, staff, like literally four or five people per shift who work for that contracted company who run the show, okay? But all of the workers and all of the cooking and cleaning, you know, and so forth, that's all done by residents.
SJ:
Okay. All right. So then food starts being prepped. You're in a facility of about close to 1,800 residents. Food starts being prepped when in the day?
J:
It's for like...okay, so, for breakfast, about everyone has to show up there by 3 a.m., and some of the special diet guys like, you know, for the religious diets or whatever, they sometimes have to be there earlier.
SJ:
Okay, okay. And then food, theoretically, starts being served about three hours later.
J:
Yeah, 5:30 or 6:00.
{ 14:43 }
SJ:
Okay. All right. So that's, that's an understandably long prep time. So I want to be really, really fair to everybody involved. Right? Because feeding a facility with eighteen hundred people in it, where the chow hall can only hold however many it can hold at a time, like, it's very complicated to get everybody fed, I have no doubt about that. It's very, very complicated.
But what you're talking about is that the guidelines that are supposed to be in place, and the guidelines that will be reported to anybody who asks the state what's being fed to prisoners, and how is this happening, whatever...they're going to say, "We're meeting these goals every day," right?
But the reality of the facility makes it almost impossible to meet those goals with any real consistent nutritional value, and that's on a good day. That's when the facility is not on lockdown, when there's not a staffing shortage, that's when there's no COVID, that's when there's not been a violent incident, right? So what happens then to food, when you guys are on lockdown, because you're on lockdown much more often than I ever would have realized a prison goes on lockdown! Stuff happens, a lot. So when you guys are in your cells, how do you get fed?
J:
If you're fortunate, and you have family or friends out there who can look out for you, put money on your books, you can keep your box stocked with stuff that's, you know, the equivalent of gas station food.
SJ:
That you buy through commissary.
J:
Right. But otherwise, you're stuck waiting for them to make the food and deliver it.
And who makes it depends on the severity of the lockdown. So if it's like something that was very widespread, like a small riot or something that was like some kind of gang violence related act that then resulted in some retaliation, a couple of times or whatever, and it becomes more widespread than they lock everybody down, and they can't really let anybody out until they understand why the things happened,
{ 17:00 }
so they can know who was affected by it, and who might still be affected by it, you know. And when THAT happens, when it's like super-extreme, they've had anyone they can pull on their staff to go into the kitchen to work, like, case managers and everyone has made our food before. That's more rare. That's much more rare.
What they will typically do though, on the less, you know, severe lockdowns, is they pull from the incentive pods what they call volunteers. But really, it's if you don't volunteer, you get written up. However, that...I mean, it's not quite so savage, in that it's, it's like we need to eat, right? And when you get into incentive pods, part of the guidelines for it is that when you are on facility lockdown, you will be expected and required to volunteer, you know.
{ 17:49 }
SJ:
So, you're expected to help out, which is a good thing. So then, what food has to be delivered? And ar you still try to deliver hot food? Or is it...
{ 17:59 }
J:
Yeah, yeah you're supposed to try. Depending on the political climate/how much the facility is willing to spend, we might use styrofoam trays. Or you might use these hard plastic trays that we eat off of like normally, you know, but then now have lids, so that they can be stacked and whatnot. And they're loaded into these laundry carts and carted from the kitchen, down the boulevard, to the various units and to the pods.
And so it adds a whole whole bunch of time, you know? Sometimes they'll anticipate the lockdown is going to happen, and they're able to get things rolling really quickly. But then at some point it inevitably happens that you know, especially when they, like, have shipped out volunteers because, while they've done this many times, they're not allowed really to leave us, like, they leave us stuck working for 12-16 hours a day, you know? They have to switch us out.
{ 18:59 }
You know, with other people. And when they do that, it usually means meals are now going to get delayed pretty dramatically. And there have been times where we didn't get dinner till 10, 11 at night. One time, like, 1 a.m. It's just, it's just the nature of of the whole system. The way it is. It's I really don't...a lot of guys want to grumble and blame the facility, but it's not that anyone's trying to do this poorly. So I don't think anyone's got nefarious intent, it's just that it's...
{ 19:34 }
SJ:
All right. Let me ask you some very specific questions, cuz I think this really helps people with the concrete. We, we keep hearing from listeners that when there's, like, personal examples given of stuff -- not in a calling people out way, just in a, give me, give me the concrete -- so that, that's really helpful.
So, tell me what a couple of typical dinners are, or whatever. Like, what do you actually get? Cuz your tray is a set amount of food, right? It's not that you, it's not that it's a buffet that you're helping yourself to, okay? So, regardless, your size as an adult, male human, you're given a set amount. Is that correct?
J:
Yes.
SJ:
So if you're six-foot-five, versus five foot two, and you're...
J:
It doesn't matter.
SJ:
It doesn't matter. Okay.
J:
It's all the same.
SJ:
All right. So give me give me a couple examples of a specific dinner. What's on your tray?
{ 20:28 }
J:
Okay. So last night was Chili-Mac and let's see, there's, like, one of those like pre-mixed bag salad where it's like, lettuce red cabbage or something, you know, the normal stuff you'd buy at the grocery store. There's a little handful of that in one pocket of the tray. And then you've got, we have this apple crisp or fruit crisp made, and you actually get a pretty generous portion of that, but it's a sugary thing, and that's in a pocket. And then a little roll.
And then a big ol' scoop of this thing, this gelatinous thing (laughs) called chili-mac that is only gelatinous because, for some reason, they haven't gotten the concept that if you just keep the sauce and meat separate from the noodles until it's time to serve, it wouldn't be so mushy and gross. But instead, they mix it all together, like a casserole and let it sit and stew. And by the time it gets to your tray, it's all icky and goopy...whatever! If you close your eyes, the flavor's not the worst flavor. But yeah.
And I don't really know how to explain the portions. Like, if we're talking, like, measuring cups. Like I think we're supposed to get a deep spoon...
{ 21:59 }
it's like a black deep spoon, and you get one scoop of that. So maybe it's the equivalent of, if you actually measured it off, of like one cup, or something.
SJ:
Okay.
J:
So it's, it's fine, right? It'll do. But if you're a bigger guy, or if you have a lot of muscle, or if you just have a really high metabolism from doing methamphetamine for years and years and years, like, you get hungry within an hour or two, real hungry, you know?
And so that's one. (SJ: Yeah.) So, like, so it's, it's always adequate. I'm not going to be able to starve, right? You know, of course not, right. But it's not sufficient, if that makes sense. If that doesn't sound completely entitled, and whatever. It simply isn't, if you really broke it down.
SJ:
Yeah.
J:
So then, Friday night is pizza night. Sounds cool. Right? Like, all these prisons get pizza. That's tight.
{ 22:58 }
Except it's, it's some of the worst, you know, frozen pizza you can imagine. You get one slice, one regular sized slice. Not like the cool Mom and Pop shop, where the slices are huge. A regular frozen pizza sized slice of pizza, couple of little cookies on the side, and maybe a little handful of that salad. (SJ: Okay.) And then again, if you're lucky, if they're not scared, they'll give you an apple or an orange. And that's it. So, like, Friday nights everyone looks forward to pizza night, but then like we get there we're like, yeah, that's right. I gotta find something else to eat afterwards, you know.
SJ:
Yeah a single slice is is not typically what grown people eat.
J:
Yeah, who eats that on the streets, unless they're like you know preparing for a photoshoot. Or they've got a bunch of other stuff available to them to eat with it, or on the side, or whatever. Most people have at least two slices, and it's just normal human stuff.
{ 23:58 }
Again, it's hard to talk about this because you start to feel like a jerk, because, you know, they're feeding me. And I need to be grateful for that because, you know, we could live in a different Society in a different world where that's not happening. Or where it's happening once a day or something like...I don't wanna be ungrateful.
SJ:
Okay so thank you for that. Thank you for that, because that's really important. So exactly. You, you are grateful that you live in a place where we say people in prison cannot just be starved to death. That is, that is incredibly important.
At the same time on the outside, we have an understanding of how we feed the people that we incarcerate in our society in the US, and it is not an accurate one. So what you're doing is you're giving us simple information that helps us on the outside know what is literally happening.
And I don't hear you complaining, and I don't think our listeners are hearing you complaining, you're reporting that, if we compare with what you guys are eating in terms of (Pardon Me) in terms of simple calorie count, and then certainly in terms of nutritional value within those calories, we're talking about what would be a really on the lame side school lunch that people would be up in arms about for 14 year olds, and not this is all meals all the time for grown adults who, in some cases, this is what they will eat for the rest of their lives, if they're serving a life without parole sentence.
So there's no, there's no other place to go for food, unless you have people putting money on your books for commissary. So yeah. So I hope, I hope listeners are getting this. That we're, we're not doing the woe-is-me whining thing. We're doing the, let's just be clear what we're talking about.
{ 25:59 }
And when we say me three meals a day, this is what we mean by meal. Right? Is that a fair assessment?
J { 26:07 }
Right. Absolutely. And in a way I'm extra-sensitive or aware to the reality of the calories in front of me because the last, you know, for the last few years before I got locked up, I was trying to learn all that stuff. You know, I had a personal training certification, and a small nutritionalist certification from the NASM, and so, like, this is something I really cared about, was passionate about, was trying to get better at, because I had had such a lack of understanding growing up, and I just loved to eat whatever I wanted to eat, and whatever. And then once I was miserable and overweight and sweating all the time, and this and that, you know, I wanted to fix all that, and I did. I worked really hard at that. And then I come here,
{ 26:58 }
and once I started, you know, losing some of my insanity and started to come back to reality a little bit, I started to - some of that training starts to kick back in, and you looking at this going, Oh, man this isn't what I want. And the bulk of people in here, you know, don't think about it like that. They just eat whatever, and they would do that whether they were in prison or not, you know, and so I'm a little more sensitive to it. But part of it is that regardless of how long I'm here, I want to be healthy. You can't totally do that. When one of the best meals you're looking forward to is a slice of pizza and a couple cookies. Like, that's just gonna keep me alive, that's not gonna fight off cancer. I don't mean to be dramatic, but that's just kind of the reality of it.
SJ:
there's recently been some news stuff out here. There was a series of reports out of, I think it's Cuyahoga County in Ohio, if I remember correctly.
{ 27:59 }
Anyway, the company that owns the contract for the prison kitchens in the state also owns the contract for commissary in the same state. And apparently, Ohio is not the only place that this is true.
J:
I've heard that.
SJ:
I believe Washington state is the same. Yeah, there are several places where this is the case. And so what you have is a lot of financial incentive for the, the shareholders in that company, a lot of financial incentive to to decrease the quality of the prison kitchen food, in order to drive up sales of commissary items. And so there, there have been some pictures being shared with the press showing a tray, a breakfast tray that has two thin slices of white bread, a glob of what appears to be grape jelly, and a, what is called a breakfast bar, but it is severely underbaked, and it was made with a mixture of pancake batter and cake mix. And it's not even fully cooked, and it has it has an egg in it, in the batter.
So this has been circulated. It's getting a lot of attention, it's getting a lot of conversation, and it has been confirmed that it's not been doctored at all. That this is absolutely legit, and this is the kind of stuff that is happening. If you had to explain to us from your perspective, as somebody on the inside who does have some support from family -- your family is not, like, independently wealthy, but we manage to put a little bit on your books every month -- in a best-Case scenario, for the average person who doesn't just have unlimited whatever, you're in a facility where we cannot send food in, right? Apparently there are some around the country where you can send some foodstuffs through, like, Amazon or something like that,
{ 29:58 }
but most of them you have to buy from commissary, and that's the only way...What's kind of a best case scenario for an average day or an average week? If, if you've got a little bit of money coming on your books and you're able to buy some supplemental food through commissary, what are you eating?
J:
Best case, well, you're taking multi-vitamins. Because that's really the only place your vitamins are gonna come from. ,And then otherwise it's mainly protein-based, that's your basis, cuz there's not a lot of actual protein in the trays from the chow hall. So it's stuff like pre-made and pre-packaged, you know, summer sausage. Think, your gas station. Don't think fancy, gourmet Boar's Head, anything like that. Summer sausage is a huge one. Or these, you know, little four ounce bars of mozzarella cheese. Okay, all of this stuff is stuff that does not have to be refrigerated, of course, at all, so it's not against not lovely, but you get used to it.
SJ:
So you're going to live forever because the amount of preservatives that you're taking in, you're going to live to be 192.. cuz you've been pickled for the inside.
J:
Exactly. Immortal!
So, it's that, and then it's instant rice. White or cheesy rice. And I'm trying to think of the best stuff...
SJ:
You can do beans, right?
J:.
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, like instant refried beans. And so Think like you know Mexican and inspired food. Like, that's the bulk of it. And if you're fancy and know how to do tricks with soy sauce or sweet and hot sauce, you can make it taste like Chinese food.
{ 32:00 }
And, you know, things like that. That's pretty much what you're looking forward to every day as far as a meal and if you want to snack, they've got like peanuts or sunflower kernels, or like chicharrones. Okay? And chips. If you wanna eat chips, they got plenty of those. But I'm trying to think of the somewhat healthy stuff that makes you feel a little bit better about what you're eating.
SJ:
Yeah. Right.
J:
So that's what we're looking at. So take your vitamins! None of that stuff has any.
{ 32:31 }
SJ:
All right. Thank you. Super super helpful because we hear three meals a day, and we picture something different than what those meals typically are. So one last question on this topic, you have used the expression, and we've heard it from lots of our incarcerated friends, you hate seeing your friends be hungry all the time and so you share what you can with them.
But we have this, this reality, too, that you're getting something to eat three times a day. So what's with the persistent hunger? Cuz this is, like, we hear this from facilities, all over the place that just low-grade hunger, is the norm. And you've kind of your kind of talked about this, but I kind of just want you to lay it out there for people, because I think it's helpful. So why are people low-grade hungry.
J:
I mean, one thing, psychologically: Depression and anxiety. There's that. Think about how it affects you out there on the streets. You either binge-eat, or you starve yourself. Whatever. Same thing's happening in here. Yeah, sometimes to the nth degree, cuz your reality is that every day, every moment, everything you look at reminds you.
And then, secondly, just like, scientifically, if you eat a bunch of simple carbohydrates, you know, that aren't necessarily all fiber-based but, you know, wheat and sugar based, you never actually get satisfied. And your blood sugar goes up, and then it crashes, and then it goes up, and then it crashes. So you have spikes like that.
So, but then there is this other, I don't want to say like "spiritual" element to it, but it's almost like that, where it's everything is about...everything in prison is about what is being withheld from you, because the punishment is the removal from society. But most of the people who work for the system, whether they want to believe it or not, they're still trained to think this, that the punishment has to continue happening every day.
{ 34:55 }
now, that you're here. So technically, what the justice system is supposed to be about it, supposed to be about the removal, and that is your punishment. And then while you are here, if you're not going to kill me, you're supposed to humanely babysit and take of me, you know? Keep me alive, right?
And there's this air, there's this mentality. And when you aren't feeling any kind of fulfillment from anything in your environment, whether it's food or exercise or whatever. If everything is lacking, if there's always something kind of essential that you're missing out on, something as simple as, you know, vitamin D? It kind of affects your whole body. (SJ: Yeah.) And that's partly where the depression and anxiety and things come from. But your mood and your perspective, affect your metabolic rate. That's just a thing, right?
So I, I think there is a, there is a bridge where the spiritual and the esoteric meets the physical and, and that's that's prison. That's what it's like to be here. And so that...and that's a big thing that I learned, that when you have anybody you can genuinely care about, even have some trust in as a friend, then you look out for each other. And if it is my last soup but you're telling me that you're hungry, I'm going to give it to you and I'm not going to let you know that it's my last one, because you'll probably reject it then and whatever, and we're not gonna do that. Cuz I know that, you know, maybe I'm kind of hungry tonight, but I'll be all right, where maybe in a couple of nights, I'll be really hungry, and I'll know that if it was after commissary day, you've got something, I can get it from you. You know, it's definitely a karmic, what goes around comes around, kind of thing. That we try to practice in here. Because one of the, I can end with this, one of the fundamental comforts of life in general, but especially life as a free person, is your food and having control over what you eat, whether you want to not think about it at all and eat anything, or whether you want to think about it way too much and count every calorie, or anywhere in between, that is your choice and your right.
And in here, we almost don't have that right. It is a fundamental part of life that is just gone, and you can't quite understand the ramifications of that, the effect it has on your person as a whole, inside and out, until you're experiencing it. But that's the best, I think, I can do to explain it.
{ 37:40 }
SJ:
That's a really great explanation, and thank you for that. And on on future episodes, we're going to talk about what some of the alternatives are to this. Because this is not the only way to feed people in prison. It's the way that we're doing it in the US, it's the way that it is in most of the US at this point, although there are few facilities that are moving to a new model, but within a normalized prison facility, like what we find in a lot of the Scandinavian Justice systems and in Germany, there is food choice given back to prison residents. And it's not unlimited choice. And of course, it is controlled by budgetary concerns and all of that, too. But restoring food choice to people who are incarcerated has proven, over the last two-plus decades, it has proven to be a game-changer on the inside. In terms of the rehabilitative process, in terms of decrease in -- tremendous decrease in --violence, when people stop being hungry and worried about food all the time, the violent incidents drop dramatically. So there there are other ways to do it, and we're going to try to learn from some prison systems that are doing it in a different way.
But first, we wanted to be really clear with listeners about this. This is how it works, and this is not just in the occasional facility, this is the norm in the U.S. So, yeah. And if you don't believe us, please look it up. Cuz there's, there's a lot of good stuff coming out in the news. This is, what? Early summer of 2023, and you can find it out there easily if you Google it so you can check us on our facts.
All right. Well, thank you very much for, for sharing your experience with us, and for giving us all of this...Oh, no, I'm gonna say it, food for thought? I'm sorry I had to. That was really bad.
J:
(groaning) BAAADDDD.
SJ:
That's okay. Don't even pretend. But it just was right there. (J laughs) Yeah, we need to think about this stuff, and we need to understand. And I appreciate you sharing with us.
{ 40:00 }
J:
thanks for listening. And again, I'm not trying to, You know, complain! Because I know how much worse it can be, and that it is, even in just a couple states to the South like, you know what I mean? It gets it gets bad and and so I'm grateful. Nevertheless, if there is a misunderstanding or misconception about what is, and I'm happy to talk about it.
SJ:
Very good. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we will talk again soon about other stuff. Take good care of yourself. Okay.
J:
I'll do my best. You, too.
SJ:
All right. Thank you for listening today. I know this one was kind of a long one. I was going to split it into two but it just didn't really lend itself to being split into two. So we kept it as one and know that in general episodes, we're trying to not do these 45-minute episodes, but it's just a really good interview, and I've really missed being able to share J's voice with you over these last several weeks. So look forward to more conversations with him.
{ 40:59 }
We also recently recorded off couple of wonderful episodes with Dylan, and those will be coming out soon. We want you to hear voices from the inside. We want you to become connected.
Proximity is a huge piece of the answer in raising awareness that will lead toward nonpartisan prison reform. Getting you connected with the lives of incarcerated people and the lives of Correctional staff. That's the key, and that's what PrisonCare is trying to bring you.
So thank you, friends, for listening. Thank you so much for donating, for volunteering, for writing, for hosting awareness events, for all of the things that many of you are beginning to do in response to your growing awareness of the needs in prison neighborhoods. And I just encourage you to keep doing that and keep talking about it, have those conversations say to people, "hey, did you know that...?" Help other people begin to notice what is happening among the often invisible people groups that make up prison neighborhoods all over this country. Thank you so much, friends, for caring.