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Meals

Interview with Guero 1, Jim, Ricky, Bernard, Cora, Roy, Mario, Kayla and Evan

JM: How many meals did you get per day?
Guero 1: 3
Jim: 2
Ricky: You get your basic three meals
Bernard: I got three meals per day.
Cora: There are 3 meals served a day with a snack machine available
Roy: That is one of the worst parts in the Madison street jail. You have dried up peanutbutter sandwhiches twice a day, then some tray of dinner consisting of greenbeans and 2ounces of meat and fruit, but it is a desired comodity, food is important. And usually every inmate eats the food that is given. Commissary is what many eat, they make up big dishes of Ooddles of Noodles mix with meat, chips, and cheese product, and slim jims, called - can't think of the name now but its renowed across every jail system from west to the east coast.
Mario: I received 3 meals per day.
Kayla: 3 meals a day unless you had comisarry.
Evan: two hots meals daily and one cold meal.

JM: How would you rate the food? Please give details of why.
Guero 1: on a scale 1 to 10, negative 50
Jim: good
Ricky: It's Okay. Some dinners were good, but everything is carbs and starch. Meals are small portions and sometimes not very flavorable. There were times the food wasn't cooked correctly. Meat was only turkey products, no beef or pork. It leaves you hungry soon afterwards because of portions and nutrition content.
Bernard: Lunch was a sandwich and a piece of fruit. Breakfast was usually not too bad...it was a variety, sometimes pancakes, sometimes eggs, sometimes this chorizo-like stuff. Dinner I can't even remember. It wasn't the worst food in the world but it was not good, by any means. The best food in there is honestly the food you make yourself off of the commissary list.
Cora: The food is absolutely terrible. An officer told us that the food is marked 'not for animal consumption' and he'd taken a picture standing next to a box because even he couldn't believe it. A friend that lives in Phoenix told me Arpaio prides himself on the fact that his dogs eat better than his inmates. I don't know how they can get away with it. Everything is obviously canned so it comes out mushy. The meals are on a 3 week rotation but even so you feel like you're eating the same thing all the time. The sandwiches are either turkey, bologna or pastrami but I name those loosely mostly we called everything mystery meat. Always check it before you eat it because it's no surprise when the meat is green. The only fresh food available is the fruit and milk served at lunch - definitely get that.
Roy: On a scale to 1 to 10, my last stay was a 1, but it depends on where your at, in Pima County Jail in Tuscon the food was about a 7, I used to love the liver and potatoes and nobody liked it too much so I made many sandwhiches and put stored them in plastic bags or paper towel for the munchies an inmate gets at nite.
Mario: How would I rate the food at Pima County Jail? The food there was alot better then the food at Oklahoma County Jail by far better. Bigger portions, better flavor, better nutrional value in the food at Pima then Oklahoma. The food all around was a far better meals than any jail I have been at.
Kayla: the food was good because it was nutritious. We got all the vitamins and minerals we needed to survive. we even had salt and pepper. the kool-ade was yummy despite the salt-peter. we even had milk for lunch. my only complaint is that the lunch meat was always horrific. to this day i hate lunch meat because of it.
Evan: On a scale of one to 10, I would say it was about a 6. Most of the meals were relatively good, but the portions were very small. A few of the meals were not very good, even gross. All of the lunch meat, excluding peanut butter and tuna fish, was disgusting. As result, I did't eat lunch 95% of the time.

JM: Did you have any favorite/least favorite meals?
Guero 1: popcorn and soda was the best every friday
Jim: yeah
Ricky: Country fried steak and Shit on a Shingle were my favorite and least was spaghetti and breakfast because it was at 4:30am.
Bernard: The pancakes were okay. The chorizo stuff was definitely strange, not good. My favorite I guess was the 'peanut butter goo' as I called it, because it was a grayish colored mixture blended with honey, made into a sandwich with two slices of bread.
Cora: There was a chicken sandwich that was served that would be my least detested meal if anything but other than that everything else wasn't any good.
Roy: Liver was one, and the Mexican dishes consisting of tamales, or the cheesburger trays. Keep in mind I am talking about Pima County not Phoenix or Madison or Durango or buckeye, they have the worst food among the jail systems. I hear Sheriff Apairo is bad also, but I never been to his lock up called "Tent City" which is located off of Vanburen St. in South Phoenix
Mario: For the first time in my experience with jails the food at Pima county jail was good. I had no least favorite meal at all, and I really can not just choose one meal as my favorite. They all were good.
Kayla: obviously lunch because of the meet. i also didnt like having only that and fruit. it didnt feel like enough
Evan: My favorite meals were the chicken carnitas, the burrito tray, the hamburger and chicken burger and the fish sandwich. My least favorite was the chicken ala king, the spaghetti and the luch meat.

JM: Were there any other snacks offered outside of meals? What was commissary like and how expensive was it?
Guero 1: the popcorn and soda
Jim: no
Ricky: Not from jail. Commissary was not bad but an average pack was about $20.00. They range from full size candy bars to snack size chips and drinks. There are also coffee packs and the more expensive packs include meat and cheese.
Bernard: Most of the time, we got popcorn and RC cola once a week if your dorm passed inspection, clean and behaved. Commissary was very expensive, it was $1 for a ramen noodle soup. Every thing on the store list was expensive, you really would have to budget your money wisely, if you even had any.
Cora: There is a vending machine for those that had a 'debit card'. You have to purchase those before going in or have someone buy one for you and send it in through the front desk. Everything is overpriced naturally. There are soups, candy, crackers, cookies and pastries in the machine. As for commissary they have a good variety of everything available. We were able to order once a week on Tuesday and your items were delivered on Thursday. It too was very overpriced. Cheap shampoo you can buy for $1 cost us $4-5. Also you have to have someone 'put money on your books' in order to shop through commissary.
Roy: Yes, you could order commissary which consisted of anything you could by out of vending machines or a store would sell, the jail system makes alot of money off commissary every week. Not to expensive, buy cosmetics can get pretty expensive, like noxema, lotion and brushes, they even sold small radios with earphones in Tucson, Pima County jail, with batteries also.
Mario: On Friday nights my cell block got popcorn and soda pop that was a great snack and a real good thing to do. The commissary was ok offered alot of good stuff and was priced ok.
Kayla: not unless you had commissary. there was however a popcorn and soda reward for doing our chores really well every friday. other than that commissary is really expensive and you dont get any unless you have some REALLY good friends on the outside.
Evan: No, there were no snacks provided by the jail. The commissary had a decent wide selection of food, toiletries and clothes. the commissary was expensive, but most of the items offered were pretty good, but small portions.

Read about inmate access to medication in the Pima County Jail