I wanted to have a better diet in prison. But when you’ve been stripped of your freedom, it can be impossible to make the “right” decisions.
I wanted to have a better diet in prison. But when you’ve been stripped of your freedom, it can be impossible to make the “right” decisions.
This piece is a commentary, part of The Appeal’s collection of comments and analysis. On the same subject : Providing dignity and agency through Chilean and South Korean food market models – Food Tank.
Throughout my adult life, I have been confronted with a family history of heart disease. My father and uncle died of major heart attacks at the ages of 46 and 27. I will turn 29 this year, and although that means I am very lucky to have survived uncle, the premature deaths in my family are a constant reminder that my family. biological clock is ticking way too fast.
Last year, my health status almost boiled down into a full-blown crisis. I was in prison at the Fishkill Correctional Facility in New York at the time, serving the final year of my prison sentence. While exercising daily, doing my best to watch my diet, and taking two different medications, my blood pressure rose to an all-time high.
Although I learned how to avoid certain risk factors, prison did not allow me to make the changes I needed. I wanted to do more, but I felt like there was nothing I could do to clear the time bomb in my chest. There was no way to avoid the harmful and pervasive prison conditions that were contributing to my spinning blood pressure. Here’s the truth of imprisonment: Once your freedom, agency and choice have been taken away, it can be impossible to make the “right” decisions.
Months earlier, I had decided to make a big change to your diet by cutting out processed carbohydrates and animal protein and eating as many fresh produce as possible. Basically, I wanted to be vegan. But I quickly realized how unrealistic that would be when I was in prison.
Prisons are food deserts. Mess hall halls generally have little nutritional value, and most commissioners, if any, offer little choice of fresh food. Most people in prison do not have access to fresh fruit and vegetables unless their families bring or send them. It is hardly a sustainable option. While in prison, families were allowed to send two packages to their imprisoned relatives each month, totaling 35 pounds. Many of our families are financially constrained and do not have the capacity to ship enough fresh produce to support a vegetarian or vegan diet, but even if money is not a problem, care packages are not enough to sustain you for the years. . But they were something.
Poor access to quality food has forced me to make tough decisions while in prison. I received my first report of misconduct for possession of so-called “contraband” on prison. Vegetables from the mess hall that were about to be composted. I was in Upstate Correctional Facility then, and the commission had no fresh food option. I had just arrived at the facility and there was not much to eat in my cell. I was faced with a stark choice: go hungry or break the rules. This is still the only way that most people can get fresh food in prison. You have to steal it or pay someone to steal it for you. What would you do?
Each facility has its own rules for the foods it provides, which means that availability varies greatly from prison to prison. I was finally transferred to the Franklin Correctional Facility, where there were better options and it was possible for me to maintain a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet. The commissioner then sold fresh potatoes and carrots and a frozen stir-fry containing a variety of vegetables and mushrooms. Bananas were 18 cents – which is not as cheap as he might think, assuming that the starting pay for a prison worker in New York is only 16 cents an hour. More importantly, the prison gave prisoners access to refrigerators, so when I received fresh packaged products from home, it lasted more than three days. It was the best option a vegetarian could ask about under the circumstances.
While Franklin may have been better for my diet, the prison environment taxed my health in other ways. Violence is common in Franklin: prisoner to prisoner and officer to prisoner. The relentless brutality has forced me to live in a state of constant vigilance. I could barely sleep because I had seen people getting cut, dipped, or put in hot water while sleeping. Some officials turned the threat of violence into a sad game – especially if you made eye contact with them.
Eventually, I managed to transfer to the Fishkill Correctional Facility. Conditions under the conditions at Franklin have greatly improved. Still, my blood pressure started to creep up. The commissioner at Fishkill was the worst person I ever met. Most of the food on offer was empty carbohydrates packed with sugar. There were strict purchase limits on everything – even beans. More importantly, the commissioner did not offer any fresh product. The closest you could get were raw onions, packaged corn, and fruit cups. I was finally a pescatarian – not by choice but by circumstances.
I was released from prison in February and now have access to a wealth of healthy food. However, if I were still in prison, my situation would be worse than ever. In May, the New York State Department of Correction and Community Supervision launched a new policy that prohibits prisoners from receiving care packages directly from friends and family. Now, if people want to provide food or other necessities for their inmate relatives — such as toothbrushes, soap, or underwear — they have to buy them through specified external vendors, many of which are price marked. Families can no longer afford packages for visits. All of this means that people inside still have less access to fresh foods like lettuce, spinach, strawberries and healthy bread than ever before. It also means that the cost of sending a care package has risen dramatically, as families cannot shop for them in their local supermarkets.
Although my release came before the enactment of the directive, I can only imagine what would be the state of my health if I were still inside. I often think of the brothers and sisters I left behind and how they might also have the knowledge and desire to make healthy changes, without having the chance to do so through a new cruel policy that transcends them even deeper. poisonous prison system. I was scared all my life while I was in prison, and now I am afraid of their own. Too many people never return home to their families.
