Mystery meat and maggot-infested produce: the disturbing reality of US prison food

In Eating Behind Bars, author Leslie Soble details how food is used to further punish incarcerated people in the US

At best you get “mystery meat”. Or “sour-smelling heaps” of macaroni. In the worst cases, it’s undercooked chicken, spoiled milk and maggot-infested produce.

In prisons and jails across the US, people are routinely fed unhealthy, tasteless or inedible meals. Many are left hungry and malnourished, with devastating long-term health consequences. The hidden crisis affecting millions of incarcerated people is the subject of Eating Behind Bars, a new book offering a disturbing account of how correctional institutions punish their residents through the food they provide and withhold.