My love affair with peanut butter dates back to junior high and a summer spent in El Salvador as the goalkeeper of a touring soccer team. I contracted a terrible stomach bug the second day and had to subsist on Jif peanut butter and Coca-Cola for two months.

So when I first entered prison in 1991, I immediately bought a plastic jar of creamy peanut butter for $1.73. Today, a similar jar costs $3.65 at my prison, MacDougall Correctional Institution in South Carolina.   

To give a picture of what prison serves: The food is heavy in carbohydrates — think rice, noodles and potatoes — low on protein and zero — as in none — fresh vegetables and fruit.

While we receive canned veggies and applesauce, fresh vegetables or fruit are like an elusive unicorn. Do they exist? Not in the South Carolina Department of Corrections.

We joke that the four basic food groups of prison are coffee, Little Debbie snack cakes, ramen soups and The Whole Shebang potato chips. I add peanut butter as the base of my food pyramid.

Here, peanut butter is like air in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: It’s fundamental to life.

In South Carolina prisons, meat — and I use this term very loosely — is served on weekend mornings during a so-called brunch that replaces our breakfast and lunch.

Even then, the meat is often a slice of bologna or perhaps diced hot dogs.

Once in late June, we were only served 1 tablespoon of “meat crumbles,” 1 cup of rice, ¼ cup applesauce and two slices of bread.

On weekdays, breakfast is simply eggs, grits and sliced bread or biscuits. Once a week, cornflakes are handed out. On Saturdays, two pancakes magically appear, and, if we are lucky, we even get syrup. Though the menu lists margarine and jelly, neither are ever served.

Peanut butter has saved many meals for me. It is a miracle creation. It can supply protein, flavor a dry pancake and make a biscuit that could damage a concrete wall slightly more palatable.

On evenings when the dreaded moon rock — prison slang for a meatball of indeterminate origin — appears on my tray, my old friend peanut butter rallies to the cause and assuages the inevitable hunger after such a meal.

In a 2024 inmate representative council newsletter, a MacDougall food service supervisor stated: “Our aspiration is that everyone enjoys the food and their visit to the cafeteria. From cold to hot plates, each meal is constructed with care. Food makes us happy. Seeing our inmate population enjoy their meals makes each day rewarding.”

Maybe if the prison administration keeps telling this lie long enough, people will believe it and overlook the prison’s go-to for vegetables — overcooked canned green beans swimming in a pool of salted water — and an atmosphere in which fly-trap strips coated in dead insects dangle from the ceiling.

The food supervisor claims, “The cafeteria is here to provide nourishing meals in an environment where food preparation is our main priority.”

All I can say in response is: Thank God for peanut butter!