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Dining Critic Tries Nutraloaf, the Prison Food for Misbehaving Inmates

"Inmates at Cook County Jail are allowed three privileges: television, books, and food. The staff has no compunction about denying its most difficult residents either of the first two, but under the Constitution, correctional facilities can’t withhold food. Nothing in the Eighth Amendment, however, says the food has to taste good. “This is not the Four Seasons,” says Tom Dart, the Cook County sheriff. “Inmates who are injuring people in jail will get their nutritional needs met, but we will not cater to their culinary desires.”"
 This is really cool. They came up with a bland meatloaf-like concoction that doesn't taste much but it carries the minimum mandated diet elements you need to stay "healthy." A serving is 1,110 calories, the miscreants in question get two servings of the thing per day. Suing doesn't help much because the "loaf" doesn't taste bad, they mostly complain that it doesn't taste much, and their interpretation is correct: tasty food is not constitutionally guaranteed.
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  1. UnknownJanuary 11, 2013 at 5:31 PM

    If it's nutritional and cheap. Why don't they add flavor it like a hot dog?

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    1. PedroJanuary 11, 2013 at 5:36 PM

      If you do that, then they'll complain that they don't like hot dogs, that they should have more flavors available, etc.

      They can't sue because their food doesn't have a lot of flavor. It is not like they are making the food taste terrible as a punishment, it is simply bland.

      The only possible way they can fight this is by claiming that taking away the taste from the food is a kind of sensory deprivation, which would make it torture.

      Delete

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