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Meals

Interview with DC, Keith, Joe, Heidi, Dillon, Kami, Linda, Gregg, Matthew, Damon, David, Shelley, Justin, Steve, Jack, Rachel, Conrad, John and Ted

JM: How many meals did you get per day?
DC: 3 meals per day.
Keith: Breakfast at 4:30 am. Lunch between 11 and 11:30. And dinner around 4:30 pm.
Joe: 3
Heidi: 3
Dillon: 3 if u were in your pod. If u were out for any reason u got 2 cold carls budding looking meat and cheese sandwich with no dressing and 2 cookies I just ate the cookies.
Kami: 3
Linda: 3
Gregg: I got 3 meals a day
Matthew: I received three meals per day.
Damon: In Tarrant County Jail and Hutchins state jail you got three meals a day and that is it.
David: we got three meals a day
Shelley: Three x day.
Justin: We were served three meals each day: Breakfast at 4:30 a.m., lunch at 11:30 a.m., and dinner at around 4:00p.m.
Steve: I received 3 meals a day. Breakfast in the 4 o'clock hours of the a.m., lunch right before noon and supper around 5 p.m.
Jack: We got three meals a day.
Rachel: 3 small meals were provided at 4 am 10 am and again at 4 or 5 pm
Conrad: 2hot meals and a sandwich
John: They served 3 meals a day.
Ted: We were fed 3 times

JM: How would you rate the food? Please give details of why.
DC: Disgusting. I usually gave mine away to a roommate in exchange for oranges. Now that I think of it, most inmates in there didn't like oranges or any other type of fruit, so I always ended up with it. That's probably how I lost so much weight in there.
Keith: Barely enough to survive. Too much soybean meat. The poor food drives up commissary sales.
Joe: bad,bland,same thing all the time.
Heidi: awful
Dillon: ABout a 6.
Kami: crappy but it seemed to get better or i was in there too long
Linda: Crap covered in Glop. Too many Carbs
Gregg: I would rate the food and drinks as very nasty. Most of the time it is frozen dinners that most of time was not fully cooked and still cold in places of the meal and you get a very small nasty drink to go with it served by very nasty looking people.
Matthew: the food would be rated as a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. the same meal was given to us 3 times a day. Each time we would receive a napkin, fork, tray chicken pot pie. The pot pies were the small pot pies, probably the 50 cent pies you see at the store. They werent filling at all.
Damon: The food in Tarrant County Jail really was gross. All the food was processed bull crap and never fresh. They serve the trays to you in your dorms so you never got a hot meal. it was either cold or lukewarm. In Hutchins state jail the food was fresh and not so much processEd because they gave you real hamburger meat chicken or pork it all came from the animals that was grown on the farms in prison. The desserts were made in the kitchen from scratch.
David: The meals got a 0 on a scale of 1 to 10. It was cold and gross. The burro's were sometimes still frozen. With out a doubt the meals were the worst part. My breakfast was always runny looking and on Tuesdays they always served tacos which weren't to bad.
Shelley: -0- Food was ALWAYS cold and never tasted good. Breakfast:cold grits, cold soggy waffles, 1 dry cold sausage link. Lunch:brown bologna & cheese sandwich. Dinner:breaded chicken patty with gravy & mashed potatoes. All cold.
Justin: The food was decent-tasting but the servings were very small. I would eat every bite of my food each meal, averaging less than five minutes per tray. Offenders who did not have money on their accounts to purchase commissary items would literally stand beside the trash van where empty trays were stacked next to and taken the trays and any uneaten foods contained on them from offenders as they finished.
Steve: The food is terrible. There is no seasoning on any of the food and there isn't any actual meat. They don't even serve fish and the servings are fit for a pre teen. Sometimes the food was warm. I received 2 trays during supper because I was a trustee but it didn't make the food taste any better. I would improvise when I could and put seasoning from Ramen noodles on some of my food.
Jack: I wouldn't even call it food so there's no scale to rate it on. All of the so called meat is soy, I think everything was soy. Every day of the week was the same thing breakfast, lunch, and dinner. All of it was blan and tasted horrible. Just nasty!!
Rachel: It was nasty but unless you went to commissary you had no choice but to eat it. They served some kind of patties that were supposed to be meat that gave you gas and it made your stomach swell up. Plus the portions were too small to get full much less stay full
Conrad: 0 The food is horrible you can never tell what it is The portions are small And you usually don't even want to eat it I usuLly teDed my food for a snack but even that wasn't always possible because no one really wants it so you better be prepared to lose a few pounds
John: Chow was usually really bland, and any bread that they served was dry. On days that they served cake I would soak it in cool-off (generic cool aid) to moisten it up. I think anything that looked like meat was soy, but they had some decent renditions of sausage and chicken salad. The things you could make from the commissary cart were better alternatives, though.
Ted: The food was awful. The portions were small and enough to feed a child on a school lunch tray. They had no flavor and the meat was soy or something and if it got wet it would swell two times its normal size. It also gave you bad gas and heartburn

JM: Did you have any favorite/least favorite meals?
DC: Favorite - none. Least favorite - salisbury "steak", and whatever nuclear waste that was on top of the instant mashed potatoes.
Keith: Breakfast is waffles with peanut butter. Lunch and dinner has to be chicken patties.
Joe: yea,breakfast on fridays,cereal,coffee cake peanut-butter,oatmeal,oranges,milk,coffee.
Heidi: mystery meat
Dillon: no
Kami: sunday morning
Linda: I like the beans and Rice
Gregg: There is definently no favorite meals, just meals that i had to eat or i would die of starvation. Most meals were still cold
Matthew: Since all meals were the same, and I already rated that meal as a 1, i would say that all three meals were my least favorite.
Damon: In Cherokee County Jail my favorite meal was the hot link tray. In Hutchins state jail my favorite meal was the peanut butter pancakes.
David: My favorite meals were the tacos, my least favorite was always the breakfast foods. its nothing like what mom used to make.
Shelley: All bad.
Justin: My favorite meal at the jail was breakfast each Friday. This meal included cereal, milk, oatmeal, a coffee cake, and fruit. My least favorite meal was the pot pie which included leftover veggies from the previous few days baked together in a crusty batter.
Steve: I grew to be fond of the chicken fried steak meal which we dubbed "chicken fried fake". Also,I favored the waffle and peanut butter breakfast tray but not enough to return to lock up.
Jack: They were all my least favorite. Eww! My favorite was the last one. I don't think a dog would eat it.
Rachel: Any of the meat was my least favorite. The women called it mystery meat or schmeat and would try to gross the new people that came in out because if you put the meat in water it would swell up
Conrad: no I didn't like any of it I would not reccomend this to my dog so you know its bad .
John: The chicken salad and sausage links weren't too bad. I liked the Friday breakfast of frosted flakes cereal, crumb cake and biscuits with apple jelly.
Ted: Least favorite was a meaat patty that was either called schmeat or mystery meat. It was not something i would feed a dog

JM: Were there any other snacks offered outside of meals? What was commissary like and how expensive was it?
DC: Yes, if you bought them on commissary. Commissary's expensive though, so don't go overboard.
Keith: You can buy inflated items off of commissary.
Joe: no.get for real!
Heidi: no
Dillon: yes
Kami: store
Linda: Commisary
Gregg: Yes sometimes we could buy snacks if you had money on your jail account in which i rarely had money on my jail account so i rarely got to buy snacks and yes they are more expensive than you would buy at the store
Matthew: there were other snacks offered and there was also a commissary but I did not stay long enough to have any relations with the other snacks offered or the commissary process and / or its pricing.
Damon: There was no snacks offer. The commissary in Tarrant County Jail was a rip off because they offered you products that are 8 times the amount or more. In Hutchins state jail the commissary was really good because the prices were really cheap and they had a lot to offer. The only problem was is that you had to stand in line outside in the elements
David: No snacks but you could buy food. It was extremely expensive but worth it If it wasn't for Ramon noodles while I was in jail I probably would have starved to death. No jokes Yuck.
Shelley: Commissary kept me alive. You could purchase regular snacks and soups, tea, cocoa. About $1 for candy bars & soda. Chips & soups were $2.
Justin: Snacks were offered to diabetics who needed them to prevent diabetic episodes each evening. These included a bologna or peanut butter sandwich and a milk. The commissary came daily, Monday thru Friday. Items they sold included chips, noodles, meat packets, candy, coffee, writing materials and hygiene items. Prices were 150-300% higher than the same items sold to citizens at grocery stores.
Steve: There are never any snacks offered outside of meals. My only snacks were my commissary. Items purchased from commissary are more expensive than items purchased in society. They offer premium snacks like sodas and ice cream at a more expensive rate than commissary. Honey buns and pretzel pieces were my preferred snacks. They don't have a checklist of commissary items anymore so you have to write out a list or memorize the items you want to purchase. Your inmate i.d. serves as a debit card.
Jack: Yes, you got commissary Monday thru Friday at 5 am in the mmorning. Commissary had a bunch of crap that was bad for you but at least it tasted good. The jail is making a killing off inmates buy commissary. Way to expensive
Rachel: Snacks were offered only to the diabetics and pregnant women. The commissary was ok it had a good selection of things but was very expensive and it did not come on the weekends. You were only allowed 30 a day
Conrad: yes Commissary was sold once every morning they scan your u.d and give you the balance on your inmate account the snacks are pretty expensive and off brand so it's really not worth it but it's way better than the food
John: For people with diabetes they'd serve a snack of bologna sandwiches and oranges every evening, and the food you could by from commissary was good, but about double normal retail prices, so it was hard to buy much at a time.
Ted: If you were diabetic they offered snacks. The commissary had a good selection but it was very expensive. The daily limit was 30 but was not hard to spend 100 or more a week. Only came mon thru fri

Read about inmate access to medication in the Tarrant County Jail

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