I’ve been troubled lately by the prevalence of stories I call #prisonfoodporn.

The standards of the genre tend to be about how prison chefs get creative with limited ingredients and cooking tools, and how bad the chow hall food is. The stories often come with recipes that make me shudder, reminding me just how sad and unhealthy our ingredient options were on the inside. 

Publications including Prison Journalism Project occasionally publish these kinds of pieces. I imagine these stories tap into free people’s fascinations with what prison is really like. A cursory glance of PJP’s “Food and Recipes” section reveals several exemplary headlines: “How to Make DIY Laffy Taffy in Prison,” “4 Prison Food Recipes to Spice Up Your Life Inside,” and “The Horrors in My Texas Prison’s Chow Hall.” 

YouTube channels, Reddit threads, even British tabloids feature #prisonfoodporn stories regularly. And it’s hard not to notice that there’s a market for prison cookbooks on Amazon and elsewhere. Editors and journalists tell me these stories get a lot of eyeballs. 

I’m not really picking on these outlets or the writers of #prisonfoodporn. Food is a topic of great interest both inside and outside prisons, particularly to people who are food insecure. The issue is that these kinds of pieces distract from the real problem with prison food.

When we talk about creative cooking inside or merely gape at disgusting photos, we’re not talking about how food is used in prison to strip people of dignity and choice. 

We’re not talking about how the prison system turns fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs into contraband, and forces us to buy from profiteering food companies. 

We’re not talking about the long-term personal and public health impacts of unhealthy, disgusting and disrespectful institutional food service, or what decent prison meals should actually look like. 

Perhaps worst of all, we’re not talking about the dietary malpractice prisons inflict on people before sending them back into the world, expecting them to be productive community members. 

In my experience behind bars, feeding incarcerated people is a “check the box” exercise for facility administrators. Food is served without regard to taste or health; it’s done because it’s required. So when you go to the chow hall or a tray hits your door slot, chances are that most of it will be barely edible. And it certainly won’t be good for you.

The vast majority of food served inside is heavy in starch, beans, soy, empty calories, low-grade processed “meat” patties, and whatever else is cheap and easy to reheat (note: not actually cook). Prisons in the U.S. spend about $3 a day feeding people, with some spending far less, according to a 2020 report from Impact Justice’s Food in Prison Project.

On the menu every day: heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. They come in the form of seven different kinds of hash I encountered in the Virginia prison system, or the nine different kinds of mystery meat patties one PJP writer described eating in a Florida prison. People incarcerated in state or federal prisons have significantly higher rates of chronic illness — 44% as compared to 31% of the outside population, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. They’re also 150% more likely than the outside population to have histories of diabetes, asthma or high blood pressure.

When people in prison discard uneaten chow hall trays because they’re terrible, they turn to the only other option available in most places — the commissary store, or canteen. But that’s only if they’re fortunate enough to have funds on their account, which means having outside support from family or friends. Prison jobs don’t pay enough to meet basic living expenses inside. 

The most common canteen staple is ramen noodles, priced anywhere from 24 cents (reasonable, comparable to big box stores) to $1.06 (highly unreasonable). A bowl of ramen typically comes with over 1,500 grams of sodium, or 70% of the recommended daily allowance. (And incarcerated cooks I knew often used two packets.) To feel full, people will add whatever’s on hand to their bowl: pickles, “cheese” products, meats, dried beans, fish packets — all ultra-processed, shelf-stable, low-quality brands you typically won’t find in grocery stores.

I cooked my ass off during six years in jail and prison in Washington, D.C., and Virginia, for myself and others. I was lucky to have funds on my books. With the extra help, I supplemented commissary purchases with fruits and vegetables from the kitchen. Sometimes I got my hands on bacon, chicken legs, burgers and other items stolen from the officer’s mess. Other times granola, tomatoes, cinnamon, ham and yogurt would suddenly become available for purchase. Wherever I was locked up, I made clear I was an enthusiastic buyer for decent food, especially fruits and vegetables. 

With my contraband groceries, I made breakfast burritos and hot pockets, egg salad, glazed carrots with rosemary, fresh tomato sauce, fruit salads and more. I cooked for birthdays, big games on TV, people’s going-away parties or just because something unusual like fresh herbs landed in front of me.

But cooking came with risks. I often had bowls of apples, oranges, bananas, tomatoes and peppers in my cell. Every time the goon squad came for a shakedown they falsely accused me of making wine. “Feel free to look around,” I’d tell them, as if they needed an invitation to toss all my possessions looking for hooch. Sometimes they took my produce; other times they wouldn’t bother. 

It was worth it. But fresh food was unmistakably contraband, and anyone caught with it could be sent to solitary confinement for an infraction. Even the basil and mint we picked off the rec yard could incur a charge.

Food is a powerful thing, and it’s about much more than calories, health or satiety. People turn food into community, agency, sovereignty, creativity and entrepreneurship. The food we cook for ourselves is self-expression and self-care. Behind bars, sometimes it felt like the only love available. But food in jail and prison isn’t medicine, it isn’t health, it isn’t healing — it’s harm.

When we publish and read #prisonfoodporn, we’re letting harmful prison food systems off the hook. Yes, these stories celebrate ingenuity in the face of adversity. But too often we focus on the ingenuity without also calling out the nutritional harm inflicted on people in prison. In many ways, it amounts to a form of secondary punishment, and one with lifelong consequences. 

The #prisonfoodporn glorified in prison cookbooks and popular essays is slowly killing people.