Project Notes for Prison Stew
Prison Stew was originally published on Butterfly Economy and had the tag prison stew. When I moved most of the content of that blog to Eclogiselle, I replaced that tag with the tags cold prep ramen and prison reform but some of those posts were not originally tagged prison stew.
If you are a warden, prison cook or civil rights activist, this may interest you.
Years ago, I read about a study that said that upwards of 90 percent of people on death row had head injuries so bad you could document it by x-raying their skull even if there was no medical records. In other words, this went well beyond soft tissue injury like concussion. Their skull was messed up.
This https://atypicalcysticfibrosis.blogspot.com/p/neurological-stuff.html is a page not a post. That means you need the direct link. It's difficult to find and doesn't show up in the archive.
It's linked in the Intro on the site. It's listed under Quick Start Guides. There's also a post by the same name in the archive. They contain different information.
If you run a women's facility, women who live together typically see their menstrual cycles sync up. If you have had enough of, say, 200 not well adjusted chicks all PMSing at the same time, you may wish to read this:
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This is where my original notes started. They started as notes for me and there was no plan to publish them. It was intended to be a means to develop something publicly presentable:
From a comment dated January 13, 2018:
"I had this thought over a year ago that we ought to provide better nutrition as a primary means of rehabilitation."
I got off the street in September 2017. I probably said "over a year ago" because I was still on the street in Fresno when I had that thought. I was in Fresno the last couple of years or so that I was homeless.
It was in Fresno that I ate oranges for a while for the vitamin C because I was irrationally angry for no apparent reason. And it was also in Fresno that I asked my son to research if there was a relationship between salt and lithium because I have a history of attracting bipolar people and I was having horrible mood swings like a bipolar person and CF is a salt wasting condition.
And he said "Yes" and we came up with beef (or pork) and salty potatoes eaten when I could feel Teh Crazeh coming and then I stopped being such a WHACK job on a regular basis. Eating the right things WHEN I could feel that "Oh, in a few hours, your mom is going to be OUT THERE again" would prevent me from going completely off the deep end.
But I was homeless at the time and I did a blog post that no longer exists, one of the blogs I deleted at some point, and largely "forgot" about the idea other than to mention it in that comment and then quote that comment in the above linked post.
I did a blog post because I was so shocked that having an orange CURED my anger temporarily though all my problems of being homeless and shit still existed. I was blown away by how big a difference a little vitamin C in my diet made and I was like "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN. I bet giving a few oranges and such to prisoners in the US would be game changing!"
The title of the above linked post says "I thought I would write about growing up in the 'burbs" but in the body it says:
"When I was thinking about writing about prison and race in the U.S., I wasn't actually thinking about my husband's best friend and his tragic tale. Instead, I was thinking about the following two comments by me on Hacker News and about how we need to find a means to feed poor people better so they are less at risk of going to prison:"
And that's a more accurate framing of what inspired me to write the post and I no longer recall what prompted me to "pivot" the framing a bit and feel that made it more approachable or something.
So:
How would you set up such a program AT ALL? I mean MAYBE it helps to first get world famous as someone who got well using nutrition and yadda but my understanding is prisoners typically lack internet access.
so I guess atypicalcysticfibrosis.blogspot.com would need to be translated to a PRINT edition with page numbers next to what is currently links to make cross referencing reasonable
UNLESS you could like make an offline version on a kindle that still hotlinked or something like that.
I know nothing about prison. I've always been "a good girl" who got good grades and didn't do illicit drugs and blah blah blah.
So I would need a lot of information about how things work to begin to brainstorm how to educate prisoners and make using the info opt-in and not a "medical experiment on prisoners" or some shit.
I'm assuming that they have hot and cold running water but no fridge in their cell and probably no ability to heat food at all.
I have read they do not allow forks or knives AT ALL, not even butter knives. (because you can steal one and sharpen it into a shiv) SPOONS ONLY.
Cold prep ramen should work insofar as "just add water to noodles in a cup" BUT I need new recipes for what to add. I add mostly fresh veggies from my fridge and they likely have no cold storage.
dry roasted nuts of various sorts -- including peanuts because it IS pituitary support BUT they probably eat too much peanut butter and I will need to figure out how to largely move that out of their diets. It's fine occasionally. It's a PROBLEM if consumed in quantity on a regular basis if you have inflammotry conditions, which is a significant aspect of some brain issues, including depression.
dark chocolate --- zinc, magnesium, mood enhancer
crunchy dried onions like you put on salads
I used a LOT of lettuce for a time to correct my ph balance. This is a fragile food that does not keep well. Corn and apples and celery are alternatives. Needs research, though certainly dried apples are an option.
beef jerky keeps without cold storage, goes just fine with cold prep ramen and is a source of B vitamins
I need to come up with squeeze bottles of clarified butter (or Olive oil -- I can't have it TOO often, but it's a healthy oil and studies show that as part of a meditarrean diet, it helps mitigate depression) AND ways to add that to a cold prep diet that make sense and are appetizing
spices, notably quality salt, black pepper and dried hot peppers
dried food high in b vitamins. need to research seaweeds
Need to research dietary sources for zinc. Covid ran wild through prison populations and it uses up zinc. That's why COVID makes you lose your sense of smell. AND once you have a zinc deficiency, then infections like trypanosomas get WORSE. Zinc protects red blood cells.
freeze dried apples and roasted almonds were part of a salad I was having for a time. the other ingredients (fresh salad greens, feta, raspberry vinaigrette, maybe some other ingredient) don't play well in this environment, but those two may be able to be the basis of SOMETHING
dried corn kernels MAY be a possible vegetable to add to cold prep ramen that keeps and will help with ph balance
crunchy spiced chickpeas are a potential alternative source of protein to try to start crowding out peanut butter from their diets. Peanut butter is pro inflammatory and makes depression and other brain issues WORSE
potatoes are a food you can practically live on but it's hella hard to add to a cold prep diet. needs mega research.
polenta. You can potentially do corn meal in a cup with spices and hot tap water. needs testing. I used to do this at work to opt out of team lunches of god-knows-what inedible garbage
but maybe I had HOT water from a coffee pot or maybe I microwaved it? I don't remember the details.
I talk a LOT on my health site about lettuce, which I did eat three to five days a week for some months to move the needle on my ph balance and I STILL try to go get a taco with extra lettuce at Taco Bell periodically etc. BUT I also -- and I say this but don't harp on it -- added more corn and apples to my diet and that's a lot more approachable here.
I already have three potential means to add apples and corn just "off the top of my head"
and corn tends to be tolerated well by populations with issues like lactose intolerance
teas are likely a medicinal thing that is feasible in this environment. You can do cold prep tea. Heat is not necessary. Mint is lung support. Chamomile is antibiotic
dried cranberries are a thing and cranberry helps clear infection from mucus membranes, including but not limited to the urinary tract, by making it harder for germs to cling to mucus membranes
I would LIKE to -- IN THEORY -- improve their actual MEALS generally and make healthier foods AVAILABLE to all prisoners AND provide FREE copies of some kind of prison-authority approved edited version of my health site AND make an opt in class or discussion group or something available to anyone interested.
Just 1. FEED THEM ALL BETTER. full stop.
2. educate those who DESIRE to be educated and assume that people talk to each other
fresh navel oranges keep for a few days without refrigeration, are relatively painless to peel and eat, are a source of vitamin C which can bring down excess anger and the peel is medicinal and can keep for a few days without refrigeration
hard cheeses and that wax covered cheese keep without refrigeration BUT America has a high percentage of Black inmates who are typically lactose intolerant
good quality crackers are an adequate bread substitute and keep better than bread: Proviso GOOD QUALITY, which many crackers ARE NOT.
many flat breads keep better than leavened breads: Proviso, this may be because the nutrients in them tend to be less bioavailable and this fosters nutritional deficiencies.
prison food tends to lack fresh fruits and veggies. I need MORE fruit and veggie options, even if it means dried produce rehydrated as part of "soup"
dried coconut
dried pineapple
oh, good god, dried CHERRIES. I used to keep those in the house.
dried mango, papaya, bluberries and strawberries
de-stemmed seedless grapes keep for up to a week in a refrigerator. MAYBE they will keep a couple of days without refrigeration? needs testing
candied orange rind should be just as good for treating allergies as fresh orange rind, taste better and keep better. must find a source or come up with a recipe
so I need "sweet"/breakfasty recipes, like dried fruits and candied/spiced nuts with some kind of grains in a cup, add water. And savory recipes, like crackers, protein...veggies...i dunno
cold prep pizza. I used to buy chef-boy-ardee pizza mix and it came in a box on a shelf and contained parmesan cheese. crackers or flat bread, <s>shelf stable means to deliver tomato sauce</s> sun dried tomatoes like that gourmet brand of frozen pizza used in place of sauce, shelf stable toppings, potentially including pepperoni, dried onions and either dried mushrooms (etc?) or DRIED pineapple.
POTENTIALLY a place to use clarified butter or olive oil in place of cheese to help hydrate dried ingredients and hold them together and supply healthy fats without lactose.
I like sweet and savory things, like peppers with pineapple. my favorite pizza is pepperoni, onion, green pepper and pineapple.
pretty sure you can buy cubed pepperoni off the SHELF and then you are supposed to refrigerate it after opening. So custom small packets of cubed pepperoni is a definite maybe. If it is shelf stable until opened, you just need to package it small enough to use it all up in one meal and you are good to go.
budgetary constraints, logistical issues with poverty housing and sharing meals with people EVEN PICKIER than I am has curtailed my diet. with money, time and effort, I bet I can do this and have people's mind's BLOWN
first nutrition article for dried fruit I opened talks about fat, sugars, etc. NOT vitamins, minerals etc. needs more research.
This is potentially research for a shelf stable version of my vending machine meals. this is sounding like I probably need to develop a product line for feeding prisoners that could then be sold as shelf stable lunches and "emergency" foods or something that is actually like tasty and appealing
Blockquote
Most prison food in the United States is prepared with the blast-chill method, which allows a large number of meals to be prepared and then reheated at meal times. In the US, this technique was pioneered by the New Jersey correctional system, in January 1982.[3]
Inmates may also purchase food at the prison commissary, such as chocolate bars, beef jerky, honey, peanut butter, bread, ramen noodles, coffee, and snack cakes.
/Blockquote
what if ONE thing that was done was make hot water available, hot enough for making tea, instant coffee and ramen but NOT hot enough to scald, AND stacks of such items PLUS bins of fresh veggies and you could choose your own and then it's basically no cooking for the kitchen and everything is fresh and this gets more veggies into the diets of prisoners
challenge: how to distribute the fresh veggies in a way that works well
IF that works, it MAY make it possible to ALSO do rice dishes which do NOT work with cold water or warm water. Needs testing, but could add variety. (SOME ramen cups are part rice and have proven to not play well with the cold prep method)
and is clean and etc.
build your own salad" with DISPENSERS of things like shredded lettuce, dried fruits, feta or romano cheese (which are NOT cow cheeses and MAY be tolerated by some people who do NOT tolerate cow cheeses), dried nuts, and similar "salad ingredients"? You go with your plate, press a button to dump some ingredients on your plate, pick which ingredients you want and press a few more buttons and eat?
could be a side dish to go with a HOT item, like chicken
TLDR: people can be burned at 125 degrees, cheese is typically melted for nachos at 150. AND a high percentage of US prisoners are non-white, thus many are lactose intolerant.
I have a tomato allergy and SOME people are also sensitive to nightshades which does not appear to be my issue because potatoes are nightshades and I have a very long history of eating potatoes like they are going out of style, so I am maybe underestimating the value of dried tomatoes since I don't eat a LOT of tomatoes. (When I have at times eaten them consistently enough, I start getting hives in reaction to them). You can also get dried mushrooms and other dried veggies and this is potentially a shelf stable, just add water (and maybe salt and pepper to taste), means to enrich ramen.
AND dried tomatoes are a shelf stable source of vitamin C which you need if you've got anger management issues. Humans don't manufacture vitamin C. I think MOST animals do. Prisoners need an adequate supply of vitamin C and if you aren't regularly getting fresh citrus fruits, you are probably deficient. Tomatoes are biologically a FRUIT but humans perceive them to be a VEGETABLE for purposes of cooking, so it's a weird little exception that can play a big role in redressing a vitamin C deficiency for many people.
sun dried tomatoes come in DRY and oil packed versions. Oil packed will NOT work here. I need dry. Dry tomatoes come in two versions: Plain and spiced. Need to try some varieties and research this. BOTH are potentially candidates for inclusion. Spices are medicinal and can add flavor.
Mushrooms also contain a number of B vitamins, including thiamine, riboflavin, B-6, and B-12.
Now I know why vegetarians eat mushrooms: It's a plant-based source of vitamins that you normally get mostly from animal products. So dried mushrooms definitely need to be included. I am not a huge fan of mushrooms but will eat them at times but if you are treating neurological issues, dried mushrooms are a potentially shelf stable means to enrich ramen, just add water, quality salt and any other spices you want and dried veggies including mushrooms.
so ramen, salt, warm-ish water, dried mushrooms, dried tomatoes, dried onions (lung support, antimicrobial) sounds fairly tasty and hearty to me as a potential alternative to diced fresh veggies with ramen.
Dried celery is a potential addition. Celery is very common in soups and is one of the big three "super foods" for an alkaline diet, the other two being lettuce and cucumbers. So sufficient quantities of dried celery added to cold prep ramen is a potential means to begin reversing acidity when you have little hope of reliably getting ahold of fresh lettuce.
so some issues:
I need to learn what packaging restrictions apply to stuff they can have in their cells. And possibly DESIGN a line of products that fits all those constraints.
and then it also works as NORMAL foods you can keep at home as staples which can double as SURVIVAL FOODS if the power is out for a week due to a storm or something.
to start: Maybe a plastic tupperware tub with compartments they can custom fill with stuff from class? as a "brainstorming idea" aka probably stupid.
Needs research:
Dried corn, dried onions, dried peppers, salt, pepper, add warm water and clarified butter (or olive oil, whichever you have)
maybe include dried potatoes?
I'm wondering what I can do to create MORE shelf stable potato and corn options. BOTH are global food staples that relatively few people are allergic to and when I was much sicker, corn plus potatoes went a long ways towards keeping me alive when I had trouble eating AT ALL.
corn bread tends to be dry and crumbly. I used to make Jiffy corn bread and use milk and eggs to enrich it and then it is more cake like. I ALSO used to add TOFU to it and that surprisingly also helped with making it less dry and crumbly.
Needs research to make a shelf stable product, but this also adds protein. beans with corn is a staple of a vegetarian diet in many cultures.
I used to add spices and top with cheese for flavor and more protein. Maybe top with mushrooms or something to make a lactose-free version because lactose intolerance is very widespread and the reliance on cheese in a lot of products is practically a "white supremacist bias" to global diets that I don't want to make the mistake of following. I limit milk and such in my diet. I have issues with stuff like that to some degree.
but this thing where if you do NOT include meat, you use CHEESE as a meat substitute -- historically, meat was a rare luxury for most peasants. this is a "rich white asshole" dietary mental model.
peasants in europe ate a lot of EGGS, not meat.
"greasy Jane stirs the pot" was a poem line and my college professor went wild with explaining how that implied she was a servant and there was meat in the pot or she wouldn't be greasy. peasants are at risk of dying from inadequate fat and this is one reason to restrict hare: it's too low fat. you die of "protein poisoning" or "rabbit meat starvation" or something.
there are three or four terms for it and I'm failing to remember the phrase I want
but the "starvation" part refers to the lack of FAT in rabbit meat.
olives, olive oil, nuts -- these are some vegetarian sources of essential fats. They tend to be a bit pricey. they are sort of the "high end steak" of vegetarian cuisine
TO DO FOR TODAY: I need a LIST of zinc rich foods. THIS is a high priority.
I'm currently in NO POSITION to "test" these recipes myself but that may change in the near future. I absolutely CAN start looking around and seeing if local stores carry things like dried tomatoes and that's typically where a new recipe starts: can I get the ingredients AT ALL? and one thing leads to another
because I have trouble with my fresh veggies going bad since I am the ONLY one eating them and I am super picky about food quality, etc. So shelf stable until open, refrigerate after opening and it takes longer to go bad than fresh veggies options absolutely could help ME make MY LIFE work.
and I would be happy to write about this for people in places like Haiti -- or even ALASKA where they don't get enough produce -- to help them improve their diets in situations where people are lucky to have a roof AT ALL and they are trying to establish very basic things like adequate water infrastructure, so I don't imagine refrigeration is a big thing in a lot of places.
If you can keep staples on hand like rice, corn and potatoes and ENHANCE basic dishes with dried veggies to improve your nutrition, that's a big deal. AND I don't like canned goods and I don't think I have eaten canned goods in YEARS. But dried foods is something I am willing to eat and which has a long human history of working well to extend shelf life of staple foods.
we rely too heavily on refrigeration and canned goods and microwaves for modern diets. "convenience" is king and it is RUINING our health.
we need to put health first and make convenience a secondary feature that fits around that need, not an afterthought we try to fix by popping pills after eating garbage all day.
Note to self: Should research food drying methods so I can provide resources for people in places like Haiti who could use some means to enhance their diet using local food sources etc.
because when people in rural China dry peppers over COAL -- bitumous coal, NOT "coals" from the fireplace -- they add metal poisoning or something and this is a big problem. So dried foods CAN be a good thing, IF done right.
at this point in time, I am TENTATIVELY planning to write a post on lunchbox essentials about "survival foods"
anyway, I FEEL like I have enough to start a rough draft with some ideas. AND it would be nice if there were PRODUCTS available for me to use already in the near future and I don't have to invent everything myself
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If you improve the diets of poor people with health issues, you can expect to see fever a day or two after you start feeding them better.
Try to keep people hydrated, feed them TEA which has medicinal properties and don't worry about it if it doesn't go over 102 Fahrenheit.
if it goes above that, get them checked by a doctor because above 105 can cause brain damage and above 108 the body can no longer cool itself and you can die. but if it's low
grade, that's how the body fights infection once you give it adequate nutrition to arm it to fight infection.
these two posts have related information on that:
scroll down to the footnotes for the second one
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