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Carbohydrate Hell

Hej! So, this post expands upon the dietary hell inflicted upon me as a diabetic here in prison.

I've been informed as I research through my limited means that the standard diet trays are tabulated to provide an average of 2,762 calories throughout the day. I am on a calorie regulated diet of 2,600 average daily calories. This should mean that on average, people are having their caloric needs met on a daily basis and there's nothing to worry about. ...Right?

What people might not realize is that not all calories are calories worth ingesting when you evaluate tray contents.

Breakfast

The venerable tray of breaking one's fast is a tray of contention for me: it may contain grits.
My dietary tray, on average, consists of:

  • Grits, Oatmeal, or (rarely) Corn flakes
  • One sausage patty, Eggs (sheet egg, broken up), or Sausage gravy
  • Two slices of white bread We might get the occasional apple. Sometimes, there is shredded potato on the trays as well. Regular trays are never guaranteed white bread, sausage patty or eggs -- these are typically replaced by two pieces of some large bread item (pan bread, 'coffee cake', or waffles - the cheap kind you get from the freezer aisle in a discount store).

Sounds nutritious, right? Compare and contrast some of the breakfasts I used to make myself on the outside: - Greek yogurt with fruit on the bottom - Egg biscuit - Coffee or - Hemp protein smoothie with spinach, flash frozen fruits (usually strawberries and/or pineapple), flax, and half a serving of yogurt - Coffee or - Egg sandwich on a whole grain or low carb bread with sautéed onions, mushrooms, and peppers - Hash brown, air fried - Coffee

I don't think my meals are perfect, but they do typically employ more balanced choices.

Bread slice counter: 2

Lunch

Oh, it's 10:30, time for lunch!
We see this on my diet tray on Friday:

  • Two slices of bologna, two slices of cheese product
  • Two slices white bread
  • Potato salad
  • Limp iceberg lettuce
  • Applesauce, puréed to be smooth as white glue and sweetened
    Regular trays get a cookie or cake slice in the place of applesauce.

Now, I love sandwiches, usually, but the whole lack of things like real lettuce (screw iceberg), sliced tomato, and real cheese makes this a poor choice. The potato salad is actually not bad tasting.

I have too many better lunch choices to detail here, but a cheese, bread, animal protein swap would be priority with the aforementioned changes.

Bread slice counter: 4

Dinner

sigh. Dinner. Sometimes it's okay. Sometimes, it blows.
Zipping to Thursday night to be fair as I say...

  • Chuckwagon patty (some sort of meat, lightly breaded)
  • Beans of difficult to identify type, cooked into a brown goop
  • White rice with a splat of brown gravy that almost missed the tray
  • Two slices white bread

The beans are darn near universally binned -- a cardboard box has more flavor and possibly more nutritive value. If the beans weren't cooked beyond flavor and recognition, I know more of us would (could) eat them. As it stands, they're lost calories for most of us.
The breading on the patty artificially inflates the calorie count, as well.
Sad thing is, that patty is one of the better entrées here in my opinion, so we'll keep it.
That rice could be swapped for brown rice, pearled barley, or some other lower glycemic impact carb.
I'd consider a vinegar based slaw to accompany this sandwich (and tonight, they actually did; gold star!), or a decent salad.

Bread slice counter: 6

Diabetic snack

This one is a bonus item for me! It is always:
- Two slices white bread - Packet of peanut butter If only we had NOT white bread...! Also, peanut butter without added sugar would be great!

Bread slice counter: 8

We have a four week cyclic menu, where variance and deviation isn't the norm. Quality isn't assured, and I actually picked the better lunch and dinner options, rather than the worst.

Fifty-six slices of white bread per week are offered to me. That is at least two loaves of bread! Eight loaves of white bread per month! OR MORE!!
By comparison, I would buy at most two loaves of bread (one whole grain, one cinnamon raisin) per month and maybe eat half of each before it goes bad.

I am struggling to manage my diabetes with just the trays.
It gets worse when you then factor in the commissary. We get to buy our poisons to do more low quality carb damage to ourselves if we want a snack that can be afforded (see my post on pricing for detail).

There's no buying cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach, and what have you to have something healthier like a decent salad to which one could have added a pack of tuna or similar; a NUTRITIOUS meal? From our commissary? Good luck!

And it begins to make you wonder what the cross section of diabetics and prisoners in the USA looks like; whether serving time increases the likelihood of diabetes in adults with sentences longer than 6 months.

I digress.
Something in my head tells me that if there were positive reforms in prisons and sentencing, there would be fewer prisoners. In turn, there would be more dollars unspent to, in turn, improve food quality.

There are many other things I want to do, but it will take money and a willingness to invest in a better future for those who still need to be behind the concertina wire for a time. Those are thoughts best served in a future post on recividism mitigations.

Remember: you are loved, even if I have never met you. :)
Consider adopting a prison pen pal -- there are services that will put that together for you. Having someone to write helps us pass the time in a peaceable manner.

Take care, hydrate, and thanks for reading.