- Prison meals vary in frequency, portion size and quality but most leave much to be desired
- Foods which can be produced en-masse like beans, grits and plain pasta are preferred by cooks
- Others are given sandwiches, suspicious meat and fish or vegetable, bread ‘loafs’ mashed together
It’s the highlight of the day for many prisoners counting off the days until they can walk free again.
But meals behind bars are anything but exciting – or appetizing, as these photographs reveal.
From sloppy goulash to rubbery meat, soggy potatoes and the ubiquitous PBJ sandwiches, meals across America’s prisons vary in size, taste and appeal.
Some institutions, dependent on whether they are state or privately run, change-up their menu for Christmas and Thanksgiving.
But in the run-up to the big day, as law-abiding citizens baste and glaze turkeys galore, this is what the nation’s felons will be tucking into.
PBJ in Phoenix: At the Maricopa County Tent Jail in Phoenix, Arizona, an inmate makes a sandwich of peanut butter, jelly and crackers washed down with some milk
The only identifiable food on this plate from Maricopa County’s Tent City Jail are soggy carrots, grits and bread. The Arizona prison, which was mostly used to house undocumented immigrants, was closed in October
Nutraloaf in Delaware: At the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Symrna, badly behaved inmates are given a mashed up, baked loaf consisting of rice, vegetables and bread
At Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, inmates are served plain pasta with green beans and empanadas on the side for a ‘high fibre’ meal
An inmate at Iowa’s State Penitentiary shows off his meal. The portions are generous but the food is less than appetizing
An inmate in a high security prison is served their meal which consists of beans, breaded meat, bread and salad at the Adelanto Detention Facility in California
A typical lunch at the now closed Maricopa County prison in Phoenix, Arizona