In July 2022, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation made changes to the state prison menus that included reducing bread and sugar and adding more healthy vegetables. Yogurt and fruit also replaced high-fat desserts.
The following year, in April, the state prison system added a plant-based protein to its menu.
These changes promoted a healthier diet, but much of the new food introduced over the last couple of years hasn’t been as tasty.
That’s backed up by what I’ve seen since I started working in the chow hall last summer, and from my experiences working in a different prison’s chow hall 12 years ago. Over time, people have become less excited about the meals they’re served.
During my morning shift in the chow hall, I wipe down cluttered tables after people finish eating. Over the course of chow time, the trash can grows stenchy and heavy with uneaten food.
I’m nostalgic for the old Sunday grand slam breakfasts: a fried egg, sausage, hash browns with a chilly milk and Fruit Loops cereal.
Back in the day, we walked into the chow hall every morning enthusiastically, carrying seasonings, hot sauce and sweeteners, ready to enjoy a gratifying meal. We used to be served meals such as coffee cake with a peanut butter pack on the side, waffles with a chicken patty, chocolate or raspberry muffins, and scrambled eggs with hash browns and salsa.
These days, many people walk into the chow hall chapfallen. A large amount of food from morning breakfasts are left on the table, uneaten: chorizo patties, bran muffin bread, peppers, baby carrots, biscuits and celery — all of which goes uneaten because it is served constantly and people are sick of it. We are served apples every day, but don’t get bananas, oranges and cranberry juice frequently enough.
The same happens with our lunches. Sunflower seeds, pretzels, wheat bread, hummus packs and stenchy lunch meat that gives some of us the runs are all thrown in the garbage.
I’ll admit that several of the new food items may sound appetizing — chorizo patties, protein crumbles (a plant-based crumbled food that is supposed to resemble meat), bran muffin bread, oven-roasted chicken, chicken bologna, taco mix and hot dogs. But most of these foods do not appear as they should. It’s common for our whole wheat bread to be rancid, and our bananas are often either too ripe or unripened. It’s not appetizing or delightful to glare at a musty, pink chorizo patty and the mysterious meat in the taco mix.
By the end of my chow hall shift, my shoulders are completely fatigued from wiping down tables and hauling castaway foods to the trash can.
After my chow hall job, I scurry to my other task working as a dog handler. And between these two assignments I find time for exercise.
As a 46-year-old man with a busy schedule and sturdy body, I seek wholesome, healthy and sustainable foods that can power me through my active days. That’s partly why these meals are so disappointing to me.
Early one morning, before starting my chow hall shift, there wasn’t anything enticing on my tray. With ravenous hunger, I squeezed peanut butter into my tasteless corn meal cereal to give it flavor. Then I realized that what I thought was a peanut butter pack was actually hummus.
With hummus melting on my warm cornmeal cereal, I tossed the tray into the trash.