How Ramen Became the Unlikely New Symbol of Prison Neglect

By Chandra Bozelko, Guardian UK

23 August 16

A new study says instant ramen, which is madly unhealthy, has replaced cigarettes as prison’s main currency because budget cuts leave inmates hungry

risons are different from the outside world. But they’re not different enough to exclude basic human behavior: wherever there’s an opportunity to stockpile something of value, people with the means will do so. And then they’ll use that power against people who have less.

For years, prisoners used cigarettes to do this. Now that cigarettes are contraband in most correctional facilities, something else had to take their place.

It could have been Q-tips or envelopes, but ramen noodles have been commoditized because inmates are hungry thanks to slashed food budgets, according to a study released Monday at the American Sociological Association’s convention.

These study results are disturbing, not only because austerity budgets threaten services provided to incarcerated people, but because the prevalence of ramen consumption behind bars is just another example of how prisons allow their wards to be poisoned.

When it comes to food, my experience serving more than six years in a maximum security prison is different from others’. I worked in food service every day for nearly five of those years, so my meals were different from the standard-issue trays.

But my time in the kitchen taught me more about correctional food provision than scholars even know. While working in prison kitchens, I learned that the diet is designed to provide between 2,100 and 3,000 calories per day even though there is no specific prison food law outlining a minimum caloric intake. No one who subsists on prison food will waste away.

But they will feel hungry, because the meals are the worst combination: high calorie and low satiety. For example, soups are thickened excessively with starch and hot cereals loaded with margarine to increase their caloric value. A half cup might provide 10% of an inmate’s daily intake, but it’s still only a half cup of soup or cereal. Even inmates who have consumed three prison meals want to supplement their daily intake with more food; it’s the reason why so many inmates (particularly women) gain weight rather than lose it. It’s also why a 25-cent package of faux pasta has risen to prominence and become coveted when it used to be low on the food chain.

Ramen noodles are one of the most unhealthy foods – “tasty little death traps”, one writer called them.

Add in the fact that I witnessed some inmates eat between three and six packages (or six to 12 servings) per day, and the potential for ramen to make an inmate sick is actually high, especially when you consider how it’s sold in prison. The minimum order of ramen is three packages. You can buy more than 24 packages per commissary order. The prison actually encourages inmates to consume what is bad for them.

Even if ramen’s danger remains debatable, though, other inmate poisoning scenarios are not.

Just last year, inmates on Rikers Island reported that they believed the staff had poisoned their meatloaf; some of them saved the food as evidence and lawyers reported examining it and finding pieces of blue pellets. The food was later tested and confirmed to have been laced with rat poison. The food tampering occurred when the usual inmate kitchen workers were not allowed near the food and staff stepped in to do inmate tasks. In over six years at York correctional institution, I never saw a corrections officer supplant a prisoner to do dirty work. It’s highly suspicious.

In Flint, Michigan, inmates at the Genesee County jail, including pregnant women, were forced to drink and bathe in lead-contaminated water from the Flint river for months after the bombshell revelation in October 2015 that the water was unsafe.

And just this June, a federal judge in Texas ordered the prisons there to supply arsenic-free water. The prisons were already required to provide more water to inmates to compensate for the lack of air conditioning and the excessive heat that has killed 14 people since 2007. The state plans to appeal this order so it can install a new filtration system next year while continuing to provide unsafe water in the meantime.

It’s more invidious than neglect to create scenarios where people have to actively and willingly participate in their own demise in a twisted attempt to survive. Prisons create or allow conditions that direct inmates toward consuming dangerous items. In that respect, prisons aren’t like the rest of the world, where the choice to eat responsibly is not thwarted by someone else’s agenda.