LOGAN, Utah — For inmates at the Cache County Jail in July, the last straw was the Nutraloaf.
Nutraloaf is a generic term for a casserole-like dish with beans, oatmeal, ground chicken or turkey and a few other ingredients designed to provide nourishment with little flavor. It’s been banned in several states.
Inmates say they were fed Nutraloaf as a punishment for sharing other food.
“Me and like four or five other guys, we’re given Nutraloaf that day,” said Zayden Collins, who was an inmate at the jail at that time. “That following dinner, we went on strike.”
“I wouldn't feed a goat Nutraloaf,” Collins said. “It’s terrible. It really is.”
Collins, who is serving a sentence for attempted manslaughter, isn’t the only inmate to dislike Nutraloaf.
Jackie Cuellar, an attorney who researched Nutraloaf as a University of Minnesota law student, said some inmates have also complained about losing weight while eating it.
“I call Nutraloaf cruel and unusual punishment,” Cuellar said in an interview with FOX 13 News, “because at this point we have so much evidence that this diet has adverse health outcomes and actual harm.”
In 2012, a federal appeals court ruled that Nutraloaf was cruel and unusual punishment for a Wisconsin inmate who said the dish was making him sick.
“Last I checked,” Cuellar said, “14 states have banned the use of Nutraloaf.”
Mealtime
Food — or lack thereof — is the reason Nutraloaf was served in the first place.
“The portions that they're giving us as grown men — we are starving, dude,” said Isaiah Selin, an inmate in the jail. “We are going hungry.”
“They're only giving us an ounce of meat,” Selin added. “The other day, I was serving [food] and they said it's only one ounce. They gave me a 2-ounce scoop, and they said I had to go half with it to get one ounce of meat.”
FOX 13 News was allowed into the jail at lunchtime, though without a camera. While the inmates appeared to receive a protein, a carbohydrate and a vegetable, the portions appeared less than what most people put on their plates. The meat looked like Salisbury steak and about the size of a drink coaster.
Selin, who is serving a sentence for drug crimes, and Collins say the small portions cause inmates to trade or share food. Sometimes the sharing is done with inmates who can afford to augment their meals with food from the commissary. Other times, an inmate who may not be able to eat bread or dairy will share or trade with another inmate who can.
But trading or sharing food is against the jail’s rules.
“Why was I fed Nutraloaf?” Collins explained. “Because I, specifically, I shared.”
Collins and Selin insist that inmates are not extorting or exploiting each other; rather, they’re trying to help each other.
Following guidelines
Cache County Sheriff Chad Jensen, whose office operates the jail, disputes that the inmates are underfed and provided FOX 13 a menu showing they receive about 2,500 calories a day.
“We contract with the company that does our kitchen,” he said, “and they follow the federal guidelines.”
And he says food trading or sharing is banned to prevent inmates from taking advantage of one another.
As for the Nutraloaf, Jensen at first said it was “years ago” that inmates were fed Nutraloaf.
Then when asked about inmates who said they were served the dish in the last few months, the sheriff replied: “That's what they got disciplined, yeah, this last go round with the grievance, but that was the only time that I'm aware of that they were fed Nutraloaf.”
Jensen clarified that 12 or 14 inmates were disciplined with Nutraloaf — all from one cell block.
He said Nutraloaf is not something the jail serves regularly or has ready to serve. It must be mixed and baked.
Collins said the hunger strike lasted three days. Inmates ended it when it was clear the jail wouldn’t increase portions or change Nutraloaf policies.
But by the end of the strike, the jail was feeding inmates regular meals.
Collins has since been transferred to another county jail in order to take classes that could help him earn parole. Selin is still in the Cache County Jail.
Jensen said there are no plans to serve more food or to stop serving Nutraloaf in discipline cases.
“I don't know if we've looked at another issue,” Jensen said of Nutraloaf.
Collins and Selin are serving sentences with the Utah Department of Corrections. It contracts with Cache County, sending the jail inmates and about $2.8 million a year.
State corrections policy allows for Nutraloaf to be served at the prisons in Salt Lake City and Gunnison, though a spokesman for the Department of Corrections said it hasn’t been fed to the inmates in years. FOX 13 could not find another county jail in Utah that serves Nutraloaf.