One more reason to stay out of prison

COLUMBUS — The next time your children start complaining around the dinner table about the evening’s fare, you should tell them about the delicacy served up to crooks who get too worked up about their prison food.

It’s called “food loaf,” and it stinks.

And I mean stinks, as in smells really, really bad — so bad that it causes state lawmakers to lose their appetite.

The breakfast version is a combination of eggs, oatmeal, crumbled toast, orange juice, butter and powdered milk.

At lunch, it includes lemon gelatin powder, grated cheese, potato flakes, ground beef, chopped vegetables, cooked beans and raisins. Supper is comparable, with the addition of canned fruit.

Mix those ingredients together like meatloaf, bake at 325 degrees for an hour, cut into 15 slices and serve on a paper plate with no utensils.

The recipes are outlined in the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s policy on “alternate meal service.”

Misbehaving inmates

It’s served to prison inmates who “misuse” food, serving trays or eating utensils — refusing to return those items when ordered to do so, throwing a tray of food or using containers to throw other substances, like “human waste products.”

Doing those things will get you a couple of days of food loaf, with extensions added as needed.

The alternate meal service is used at all state facilities. It was the topic of some discussion during a recent inspection of the Ohio State Penitentiary.

Lawmaker members of the General Assembly’s Correctional Institution Inspection Committee visited that facility a couple of months ago with an interest in food loaf.

The director of that committee was served a slice. And, although she “was anxious” to try it, “she was unable to even take that first bite,” according to a subsequent report. “Although it was burnt, it looked edible, yet the smell alone was nauseating. If it was made from the recipe, it is a mystery as to the cause of the stink. One staff person relayed that some inmates like it.”

Members of the inspection committee understandably voiced concern about food loaf. According to the inspection report, “From the look and smell of the loaf, there is no question that the loaf is used as punishment.”

Some of the inspectors tried the regular prison meal, which they said “was good.” But “Rep. [John] Otterman [a Democrat from Akron] chose not to eat after seeing and smelling the loaf.”

X Marc Kovac is the Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. E-mail him at mkovac@dixcom.com