Dining Critic Tries Nutraloaf (2010)
chicagomag.com
chicagomag.com
I imagine it is lacking a lot of micronutrients and/or doesnt have them in a bioavailable form.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/us/soy-diet-is-cruel-and-...
I love cooking and love eating new things but I absolutely hate having to figure out what to eat everyday without just resorting to crappy and expensive take out or fast food. Sometimes I just want to eat something without having to think about it and without eating something that will make me feel bad. I'd love to have a human equivalent of dog food to eat when I'm feeling lazy. A nutraloaf with a bit of salt and seasonings probably wouldn't be too bad. It's not a ribeye, loaded baked potato, and Caesar salad but it has all of your nutrients and about as close to whole food as you can get without actually being whole food. It could be sold frozen or in retort pouches (cooked in the pouch) or you could just make your own and freeze it.
Somewhat related, but the two architects I personally met, both were the unhappy kind: one was designing casinos, and the other prisons. It's like a real life Far Side cartoon of some sort, both doing exactly the opposite of all the things they learned in school.
Same for the chefs here I guess "Ok, remember what you learned in culinary school? Do exactly the opposite and you'll be just fine".
Imagine being the designer of AA missiles: "Customer requirement is to destroy an aircraft containing human being, with maximum effectiveness and minimum cost."
Imagine doing any hurtful thing whatsoever, without the context of why it's being done.
The Nutraloaf is what they give to prisoners after pretty much every other punitive measure is attempted to correct their behavior. If there were a more humane measure, they'd have tried that already.
Edit: Imagine being the writer of a Hacker News comment: "Customer requirement is to bring the maximum amount of sense to a discussion, without violating any of the community's sacred cows."
I don’t know if that’s talking about how folks treat their kids vs how they see prisoners.
“You can’t hit people even if you’re frustrated” is a lesson in common, for example.
And:
> prisoners as people who haven’t yet learned how to act appropriately in the world
People selling and using drugs (non violent, for example) are people who haven’t learned how to act appropriately?
People in prison for dodging military service and drafts?
People in prison for having to steal for feeding their family?
These are the vast majority of people in prisons around the world. These first category being the majority of prisoners in America.
> Or just get yourself tossed into Cook County Jail, where an inmate who causes serious food-related problems buys himself a one-way ticket to Nutraloafopolis. Get caught making homemade hooch in your cell toilet? You get Nutraloaf. Hurl food at a guard or stab someone with a spork? Nutraloaf.
The article calls out that people who are fed Nutraloaf in prison have committed additional offenses. Are you advocating that it’s ok to stab a prison guard if you feel that your incarceration was unfair?
There are many different levels of feeling that something is “unfair,” but in the limit of being incarcerated with no crime, it’s indistinguishable by the incarcerated individual from kidnapping by a large, organized gang. Are you advocating that self defense against kidnappers is inappropriate?
a) it's a county jail, not state or federal prison. the people there wouldn't be hardened criminals there for extended stays. they'd mostly be, afaik, petty criminals and people waiting for trial dates. I suspect the spork stabbings aren't attempts at murder, particularly against prison guards (esp. considering the article says "stab someone" vs "hurl food at a prison guard").
b) the article, the part you quoted in fact, specifically calls out food-related problems, not "additional offenses". making prison wine and throwing food could probably be laboured into offenses if someone with power was vindictive enough, but those are really basic administrative issues and this nutraloaf is an administrative response.
There's nothing in the article examining its effect on recidivism. It's probably no more effective at that than jail in general, which is to say, there are much more effective interventions.
you raise an interesting point, and I did a bit of a dive into various dictionaries, new and old: chances of re-incarceration after release is an important aspect of criminology and public policy, but it's not built into the word recidivism.
recidivism is "backsliding", so it's more a case of "draw a line or a gradient, then measure recidivism across that line or gradient"
in the context of prisoners, it's probably a good idea to be clear about the sense of the definition chosen.
(as an aside: bland food won't work well on someone who lost their sense of smell from long covid, and prison populations were heavily affected)
In a detention center, you get a spoon to eat with, rehabilitation, a knife and fork. Other living conditions are inline with that.
You seem to think all humans are the same, well adjusted, able to readily and happily change to live with others, and so on.
The truth is, many people in jail are indeed stabbing others in jail for "no reason", as in "no reason most would consider valid".
There are indeed issues with the US prison system, or so I've read, but I assure you that inmates in prisons are known, world wide, to get stabby without cause. Here's a primary example...You know you can punch someone in the head instead of stabbing, yes?
This continues down to "talking instead of physical violence", but by saying stabbing is the result of poor conditions, you're saying stabbing is the sensible result of any lack of joy.
There's a whole body of complicated philosophy about what criminal law should do, whether it's about avenging victims or rehabilitating offenders or deterrance or profit motive, but I don't think we even need to get into that because a fundamental assumption even having that conversation requires is that the things the state locks people up for are legitimate and this is at this point the exception for me rather than the rule
Would evidence change your belief?
> Violent offenses account for over 3 in 5 people (62%) in state prisons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...
Here is a good page that has lots of info on the populations: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2024.html
And a pie chart showing the difference in population between all the various types: https://static.prisonpolicy.org/images/pie2024-2X.webp
It's basically around half the total.
But it should be added that violent offenders are not the only category which harmed someone. Stealing from people harms them. Others might want to carve out shoplifting from this, but not me: for one thing, many stores are owned by identifiable human beings, and stealing from that store is stealing directly from them. For big chains or whatever, diffuse harm is still harm. On a personal level I care less about the latter, but this is not a distinction which should be enshrined into law. Theft is wrong.
By any sane breakdown, the large majority of people imprisoned or jailed are there directly due to harming other people. I lean towards policy which will minimize the amount of offenses which don't directly harm other people, personally. What crimes you feel fall into that category differs from person to person, though.
But the fact remains that pointing guns at people, stabbing them, stealing their car, breaking into their house, raping them: these harm the victims, directly, and those sorts of offenses are, in fact, the majority for which prisoners are imprisoned or jailed.
- copyright violation
- jaywalking
- possessing marijuana
- peeing outside within 100 yards of a minor
- a 17 and 18 year old in a committed relationship having consensual sex
- "obscenity"
- [medically necessary] abortion [of a pregnancy due to rape from a family member]
- being gay in the military
So, ignore those, and focus on the violent crimes again. Why do we have so many more violent criminals than anyone else? Do we still think this is just totally normal, and we can't do anything about it, so fuck it, lock them up and throw away the key? If we were talking about any other metric of a healthy population (child death rate, inability to get food or housing, infectious disease rate, etc) we would be actually working to change these numbers rather than just building more places to stick the people we don't want to think about. Maybe the fact that there are so many violent crimes is a good enough reason for us to start rethinking our policies, what makes our fucked up citizens act this way, and how we can begin to turn the tide.
Or we can give into apathy and say, fuck it.
"Criminal" is not about harm by the convict but about successful prosecution.
The consistent texture of the Nutraloaf may “help” here. My spouse lost her sense of smell (for other reasons than Covid) years ago and now relies heavily on textures for food enjoyment.
The difference is that that's used in combination with other ingredients which provide flavor, while this is served on its own.
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/diet-nutrition/news/...
If you're anything like me, you're now asking "no, really, Penn, where is all that weight? what's the joke?" and you'll be disappointed.
Used to be inhumane to give that to prisoners too often, and now it’s delicacy?
https://historyofyesterday.com/lobster-used-to-be-a-poor-man...
If it's a punishment specifically targeted at changing behavior, it may be successful by that measure.
This seems like the latter.
I once made the mistake of trying BOL power shake [0]. I imagine the thing described above tastes about the same as that. I couldn't have more than a few sips, it was absolutely disgusting.
[0] https://bolfoods.com/products/salted-caramel?variant=4289476...
That is insane ...
I look forward to seeing a case against the manufacturer in the supreme court.
Rather than punishing tools let's punish perpetrators - the ones that came up with the idea.
Unless a certain 6 of the current 9 justices miraculously find their way off the court in the next couple months, you’ll be looking forward to this practice continuing either way.
Cut the hyperbole. From the description in the OP it just flavorless with bad texture. It's not great but nowhere close to "simulated poison" or "mock execution".
>it makes the inmate feel like they are starving even though they aren't.
Where is this from? The OP specifically mentions that he "felt so full and lethargic that I skipped dinner and the following breakfast".
> so intrinsically disagreeable that my throat nearly closed up reflexively.
and then:
> That night, my stomach’s rebellion against the loaf was anything but neutral. I felt so full and lethargic that I skipped dinner and the following breakfast.
...followed by a euphemism for serious diarrhea.
I'd encourage you to call poison control with those symptoms. Then consider what you would do if you had a kid or loved one with those symptoms and they ate "something" they didn't know what it was. Regarding starving, they feel like they have not eaten, but rather have been poisoned and can no longer eat more. That's not eating.
I did. You cherrypicked one part, which is seemingly contradicted by other parts of the paragraph:
"The mushy, disturbingly uniform innards recalled the thick, pulpy aftermath of something you dissected in biology class: so intrinsically disagreeable that my throat nearly closed up reflexively. But the funny thing about Nutraloaf is the taste. It’s not awful, nor is it especially good. I kept trying to detect any individual element—carrot? egg?—and failing. Nutraloaf tastes blank, as though someone physically removed all hints of flavor."
The author admits that taste isn't even bad, so presumably his body is disagreeing with the texture. Maybe I care about texture less than the average person, or the scientists at Aramark managed to make something so textually bad that it transcends normal foods, but I can't imagine something so textually bad that it tastes anywhere close to literal poison. Underneath the writer's flourish, I don't see anything to suggest it's not anything worse than my previous assessment of "just flavorless with bad texture".
>...followed by a euphemism for serious diarrhea.
Besides the problem reading way too much in between the lines, I can't think of any plausible reason how the food can cause diarrhea. After all, the blandless/bad texture can plausibly describe meal replacements like soylent or meal squares, and those seem to sell well enough to suggest they don't give people gastric distress.
>I'd encourage you to call poison control with those symptoms. Then consider what you would do if you had a kid or loved one with those symptoms and they ate "something" they didn't know what it was. Regarding starving, they feel like they have not eaten, but rather have been poisoned and can no longer eat more. That's not eating.
I know you're trying really hard to push to "this is poison" angle, but this is just silly. The only reason why you'd call poison control in that case is that there's a plausible chance that household chemicals were consumed. I seriously doubt you're going to call poison control that absent that possibility (eg. your kid coming home from school with upset stomach). Nutriloaf, as bad as it is texture wise, doesn't contain any toxic chemicals. It just tastes bland and has bad texture.
People complain about Taco Bell giving them diarrhea for similar reasons.
I said it was described as what was essentially a "simulated poison," because force feeding it to people it is analogous to how a mock execution uses "simulated" click of a trigger- it's not poisoning people and firing blanks isn't killing them- but they are both simulated acts intended to force compliance. This isn't "bland," it's manufacturing shit that doesn't kill you immediately and forcing people to eat it.
I did not say it was poison, but I'd be pretty suspicious of what your interest is on this one. try not to make it sound like you've been torturing people.
It's designed to be bland. Everything else is your conjecture. Moreover, what even is "something other than food"? Like I said in my previous comment, people seem to eat ultraprocessed foods like soylent and mealsquares just fine, and those are probably even further from what "food" actually is. At least with nutriloaf you can make out pieces of the constituent ingredients.
>I said it was described as what was essentially a "simulated poison," because force feeding it to people it is analogous to how a mock execution uses "simulated" click of a trigger
No, simulated poison would be feeding you denatonium or something. Eating nutriloaf might not be the most appetizing, but based on the ingredients it's nowhere close to eating actual poison. I looked at other sources[1] and so far as I can tell, it's just bland. I also found a lawsuit by an inmate that alleges it was making him sick, but aside from him and the dining critic, I can't find any evidence that it's causing sickness on a large scale, which would be expected given how many institution use it. Maybe it really is "simulated poison" to a few % of people, and in those cases I'd agree it would be considered cruel and unusual punishment, but people who get sick from milk or taco bell, that doesn't mean milk or taco bell is "simulated poison".
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/01/02/256605441/pu...
>I did not say it was poison, but I'd be pretty suspicious of what your interest is on this one. try not to make it sound like you've been torturing people.
If you have to resort to questioning motives and borderline implying that I torture people, it's probably a sign that you don't have actual responses to the object level question and want to derail the discussion into something else.