I am currently an inmate in Santa Rita Jail (SRJ), the County Jail for Alameda County, housed in Housing Unit (HU) 4, Pod E. I am a pretrial detainee.
We are supposed to get fifteen minutes to eat our dinner, but often only actually get five minutes to eat dinner. Because the hot trays have been in the oven for a long time, the tray is very hot, and you can’t eat it right away. You have to wait a couple minutes for it to cool down (leaving only two or three minutes to eat). Usually, it’s the technicians instead of the deputies that choose how long meal time is. The technicians will even threaten to take away privileges (like turning off the TV during a big sports game) if everyone doesn’t finish eating in the limited time the technician sets.
Usually, it’s the technicians instead of the deputies that choose how long meal time is. The technicians will even threaten to take away privileges (like turning off the TV during a big sports game) if everyone doesn’t finish eating in the limited time the technician sets.
I am on the low sodium diet here because I have hypertension. Almost every day, we get beans as a main component of our dinners. Once or twice a week, we may get rice instead of beans. I always eat the rice and the meat patty that comes with it, but I can’t stomach eating the beans even though I’m always hungry. When you eat beans normally, you expect to see and taste the individual beans, but here at the jail, the jail beans have usually been cooked so much that they end up looking like dark mush with no texture and no taste. When the beans get like that, they also have a sticky and very thick paste around the edges. Some of that paste is hardened around the very edge, and that crusted pastiness is hard to eat, especially when it is very hot, and we only have 5 minutes to eat and have to wolf down our food.
I often get diced “apples” for breakfast and dinner, that taste very sour and irritate my mouth and throat. In the last couple months, we’ve been getting peaches or pears for a week at a time though, alternating with the apples. The peaches and pears taste very sweet and mushy, like they were canned and have lots of sugar and preservatives. We usually get a cooked broccoli and cauliflower mix for dinners, but these vegetables are usually very mushy and fall apart. So the only fresh fruit or vegetable I get is the one apple or one orange in my lunch.
Even though a food menu is supposed to be posted in the housing unit, the jail does not let us see a food menu for our particular diet (what we are supposed to be served), so we have no way to compare what we actually get versus what the menu says we should be receiving unless we somehow find a menu, which leads to decreased accountability for the kitchen to serve what it says it is serving.
When the trays aren’t cleaned properly, the food remnants that stick to the trays just keep getting cooked into the plastic of the trays more and more. When there are food remnants on the bottom or sides of the trays, this means my food is contaminated, which feels unsanitary and not safe to eat.
My unit receives our food on the hard plastic reusable trays almost always. Over half the time I get a food tray, I notice remnants of a previous meal still stuck on the bottom of the tray, under the “fresh” food on top. Or, the remnants stick to the sides of the tray compartments. For example, I might get my low sodium diet tray and see a ring of tomato sauce still on the tray (which is what was on the regular diet menu the night before). When the trays aren’t cleaned properly, the food remnants that stick to the trays just keep getting cooked into the plastic of the trays more and more. When there are food remnants on the bottom or sides of the trays, this means my food is contaminated, which feels unsanitary and not safe to eat.
Even though the trays are supposed to be fully sealed with plastic, about a third of the time, the plastic on my trays are not sealed onto the tray. And when the plastic is not fully sealed, that meal will be even more overcooked than normal. In this situation, it becomes completely dried out and inedible. For example, when the plastic seal is broken, if there is white rice on the tray, the rice loses all of its moisture and ends up hard as a rock. You could almost chip your tooth on it. The broccoli or vegetables on a tray with a broken seal will be totally shriveled up and black, and therefore inedible.
And when the plastic is not fully sealed, that meal will be even more overcooked than normal. In this situation, it becomes completely dried out and inedible. For example, when the plastic seal is broken, if there is white rice on the tray, the rice loses all of its moisture and ends up hard as a rock. You could almost chip your tooth on it. The broccoli or vegetables on a tray with a broken seal will be totally shriveled up and black, and therefore inedible.
Because the jail food is so difficult to eat and upsets my stomach, I am forced to spend money at commissary. But I am not able to buy commissary every week – commissary prices are high and the food is poor quality.