Nutraloaf (also known as meal loaf, prison loaf, disciplinary loaf, food loaf, lockup loaf, confinement loaf, seg loaf, grue or special management meal) is
food served in prisons in the United States and formerly in Canada
to
inmates
The Inmates are a British pub rock band, which formed after the split of The Flying Tigers in 1977. In 1982, they had a medium-sized international hit with a cover of The Standells' "Dirty Water", and a UK Top 40 hit with their cover of Jimmy M ...
who have misbehaved, for example by
assault
An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...
ing
prison guard
A prison officer or corrections officer is a uniformed law enforcement official responsible for the custody, supervision, safety, and regulation of prisoners. They are responsible for the care, custody, and control of individuals who have been ...
s or fellow prisoners.
It is similar to
meatloaf
Meatloaf is a dish of ground meat that has been combined with other ingredients and formed into the shape of a loaf, then baked or smoked. The final shape is either hand-formed on a baking tray, or pan-formed by cooking it in a loaf pan. It ...
in texture, but has a wider variety of ingredients. Prison loaf is usually bland, perhaps even unpleasant, but
prison warden
The warden (United States, US, Canada) or governor (United Kingdom, UK, Australia), also known as a superintendent (US, South Asia) or director (UK, New Zealand), is the official who is in charge of a prison.
Name
In the United States and Canad ...
s argue that nutraloaf provides enough
nutrition
Nutrition is the biochemical and physiological process by which an organism uses food to support its life. It provides organisms with nutrients, which can be metabolized to create energy and chemical structures. Failure to obtain sufficient n ...
to keep prisoners healthy without requiring eating utensils.
Preparation
There are many recipes that include a range of food, from vegetables, fruit, meat, and bread or other grains. The ingredients are blended and
baked
Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread but many other types of foods can be baked. Heat is gradually transferre ...
into a solid
loaf
A loaf ( : loaves) is a (usually) rounded or oblong mass of food, typically and originally of bread. It is common to bake bread in a rectangular bread pan, also called a loaf pan, because some kinds of bread dough tend to collapse and spread ...
. In one version, it is made from a mixture of ingredients that include ground beef, vegetables, beans, and bread crumbs. Other versions include
mechanically separated poultry and "dairy blend".
Legal challenges
Although nutraloaf can be found in many United States prison facilities, its use is controversial. It was mentioned by the
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
in 1978 in ''
Hutto v. Finney'' while ruling that conditions in the
Arkansas penal system constituted
cruel and unusual punishment
Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase in common law describing punishment that is considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the person subjected to the sanction. The precise definition varies by jurisd ...
. Prisoners were fed "", described as "a substance created by mashing meat, potatoes, oleo
argarine syrup, vegetables, eggs, and seasoning into a paste and baking the mixture in a pan". The majority opinion delivered by Justice
John Paul Stevens
John Paul Stevens (April 20, 1920 – July 16, 2019) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1975 to 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the second-oldes ...
upheld an opinion from the
8th Circuit Court that the diet be discontinued.
The standards of the
American Correctional Association
The American Correctional Association (ACA; called the National Prison Association before 1954) is a private, non-profit, non-governmental trade association and accrediting body for the corrections industry, the oldest and largest such associati ...
, which accredits prisons, discourage the use of food as a disciplinary measure, but adherence to the organization's food standards is voluntary.
Denying inmates food as punishment has been found to be
unconstitutional
Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...
by the courts, but because the loaf is generally nutritionally complete, it is sometimes justified as a "dietary adjustment" rather than a denial of proper
meal
A meal is an eating occasion that takes place at a certain time and includes consumption of food. The names used for specific meals in English vary, depending on the speaker's culture, the time of day, or the size of the meal.
Although they ca ...
s.
Lawsuit
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
s regarding nutraloaf have taken place in
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
,
[Arnett v. Snyder, 331 Ill. App. 3d 518 (2001)](_blank)
/ref> Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, Nebraska
Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...
, New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...
, and West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...
.Vermont Supreme Court
The Vermont Supreme Court is the highest judicial authority of the U.S. state of Vermont. Unlike most other states, the Vermont Supreme Court hears appeals directly from the trial courts, as Vermont has no intermediate appeals court.
The Court ...
, arguing that since Vermont state law does not allow food to be used as punishment, nutraloaf must be removed from the menu. The Vermont Supreme Court held that the nutraloaf and water diet constitutes punishment as it was designed to be unappetizing and as such compelled its removal. In April 2010, sheriff Joe Arpaio
Joseph Michael Arpaio (; born June 14, 1932) is an American former law enforcement officer and politician. He served as the 36th Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona for 24 years, from 1993 to 2017, losing reelection to Democrat Paul Penzone i ...
of Maricopa County, Arizona
Maricopa County is in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,420,568, making it the state's most populous county, and the fourth-most populous in the United States. It contains about 6 ...
won a federal judgment in favor of the constitutionality of nutraloaf.[ In December 2015, New York State decided to discontinue the use of nutraloaf throughout prisons statewide.][
]
See also
*Gruel
Gruel is a food consisting of some type of cereal—such as ground oats, wheat, rye, or rice—heated or boiled in water or milk. It is a thinner version of porridge that may be more often drunk rather than eaten. Historically, gruel has been a ...
*Hardtack
Hardtack (or hard tack) is a simple type of dense biscuit or Cracker (food), cracker made from flour, water, and sometimes salt. Hardtack is inexpensive and long-lasting. It is used for sustenance in the absence of perishable foods, commonly dur ...
, hard bread of military and naval use
*Horsebread
Horsebread was a type of bread produced and consumed in medieval Europe. At the time, it was considered to be of low quality, made from a seasonal mix of legumes (such as dry split peas) and bran along with other non-wheat cereal grains such as o ...
, a European bread eaten by the poor
* Humanitarian daily ration
*Kongbap
''Kongbap'' is a Korean dish consisting of white or brown rice cooked together with one or more varieties of soybeans. ''Kongbap'' may be made from scratch by combining and cooking together dried rice and soybeans (usually black soybeans), althoug ...
, a staple in Korean prisons, various mixtures of rice, grains, peas, and beans
* Pemmican
Pemmican (also pemican in older sources) is a mixture of tallow, dried meat, and sometimes dried berries. A calorie-rich food, it can be used as a key component in prepared meals or eaten raw. Historically, it was an important part of indigenous ...
* List of diets
An individual's diet is the sum of food and drink that one habitually consumes. Dieting is the practice of attempting to achieve or maintain a certain weight through diet. People's dietary choices are often affected by a variety of factors, incl ...
References
External links
Chicago magazine dining critic tries Nutraloaf
September 2010
Clark County jail's recipe
* {{cite web, url=http://www.slate.com/id/2075999/, title=Loaf Without Parole, publisher=Slate.com
''Slate'' is an online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. It was created in 1996 by former '' New Republic'' editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. In 20 ...
, date=December 23, 2002 Contains a recipe for "the Loaf".
* Cohen, Adam.
Can Food Be Cruel and Unusual Punishment?
''TIME
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
''. April 2, 2012.
* Greenwood, Arin.
Taste-Testing Nutraloaf
" ''Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
''. Tuesday June 24, 2008.
*
Arkansas Department of Correction's recipe for disciplinary meatloaf
Archive
. ''Arkansas Times
''Arkansas Times'', a weekly alternative newspaper based in Little Rock, Arkansas, is a publication that has circulated more than 40 years, originally as a magazine.
Founded as a small magazine on newsprint in 1977 by publisher Alan Leveritt, i ...
''. February 25, 2016.
* Fuchs, Erin.
NUTRALOAF: This Revolting Food Is Used As Punishment In Prison
" ''Business Insider
''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...
''. June 25, 2013.
The Food So Bad That It's Banned In Prison
Half As Interesting. January 7, 2021
Breads
Penal system in the United States
Penal system in Canada
Prison food