Cook County Jail

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Meals

Interview with Jason, Kat, JM Advice, Brian, DavidP, keke, Teabag, Crystal, Edward, isaac, Lucky, Laydie, Kathy, Lisa, Apache, Janet, Ron, Ryan and Laura

JM: How many meals did you get per day?
Jason: Three, if you want to call them a meal
Kat: 3
JM Advice: 3 per day.
Brian: I was only there long enough for two meals.
DavidP: 3 meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner.
keke: one thats dinner because a bolonga sandwich doesnt count for a meal i dont think and if you want breakfast you have to wake up at 330 am who does that
Teabag: 3
Crystal: Not fit for a dog. Breakfast is cold (hot cereal) or cold ceral,a 1/2 pint of skim mild, a piece of baloney or a little scrambled egg with baloney, two slices of bread with margarine and two packs sugar. NO salt or spice with any meal. Lunch is two slices slimy poor quality baloney with four slices bread, sometimes a cookie or snack food bag (like chips), occasoinal a tiny apple or orange and Koolaid like artificial small drink. Dinner is ground slop (hamburger or some other poor quality ground meat surprise with maybe a taco sauce or other prepared mix on it, often mixed with shredded baloney), a few tiny bits of lettuce with a small salad dressing pack and carrots or carrots mixed with a piece of cabbage or carrots mixed with beans or once a week beans that are without spice, oil or butter and overcooked, plus a cookie or piece of sponge cake and two slices of bread with margarine and 1/2 pint of milk.
Edward: you would get three,breakfest,lunch and dinner
isaac: 3
Lucky: 3
Laydie: 3
Kathy: Three
Lisa: 3
Apache: 3
Janet: 3
Ron: 3
Ryan: 3 breakfast was hot lunch was bologna(cold) and dinner hot
Laura: Three. I only ate two, though.

JM: How would you rate the food? Please give details of why.
Jason: Rubage..I would not eat it..
Kat: Horrible molded food
JM Advice: The meals are not anything fancy according to multiple inmate reviews. They receive an average rating of horrible to mediocre, so don't get looking forward to your dining experience in the jail. You do receive three meals a day. Breakfast is served very early and you are woken up to go eat. Lunch usually consists of a very simple sandwich and accompanying punch-like drink.
Brian: Dinner was actually not bad, they gave us chicken and rice. When you're actually in the holding cell waiting to be sentenced, they just give you like a bologna sandwich and a juice bottle. And if you ask for more, they're not going to give it to you. When I went, it was during summertime, and it was pretty hot outside. You get one bologna sandwich, and one juice in a plastic bottle, like a fruit punch kind of thing.
DavidP: That was the worst part of the day. The food was horrendous - almost inedible. You eat it because you're starving, and even then, you only eat about half. It's horrendously tasty. They serve you three meals - breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The breakfast comes very early - roughly at 5. They wake you up and tell you that breakfast is there - in this case, it was like grits or oatmeal - it couldn't have been worse. There were never any good meals. I think one time we had eggs, and it was just all water. It was just yellow water. It's just not good quality, and the nourishment isn't there.
keke: on a scale of 1 to 10 10 being the highest 0 because its slop and we are cattle
Teabag: nasty as hell. Breakfast: always cold (Oatmeal or Grits, Bread w/ butter if you were lucky Jelly, a small fruit juice and a milk Lunch: 2 Bologna sandwiches, a packet of Kool Aid powder a 1oz bag of chips and 4 cookies. Dinner: Milk, SLOP (consisting of Dog Food grade meat mixed with either noodles or rice) a small salad portion, 2 cookies, broccoli stems (never tops.
Crystal: For $1.50 per inmate per day what do you expect? Not fit for a dog, nutriciously inadequate promotes colon cancer from too much nitrates in baloney and causes migraine headaches to be worsoned due to nitrates in baloney. Inmates are chronically dehydrated because fluid with meals is not enough for a toddler and they may not realize they need to drink a whole lot of water from the fountain on their sink in the cell. The air is dry and inmates don't push enough fluids.
Edward: not good
isaac: horrible
Lucky: it sucks and its not enough
Laydie: edible
Kathy: Horrible, disgusting
Lisa: horrible
Apache: bad
Janet: ITS SLOP!!!!!!!!!
Ron: very poor
Ryan: terrible you better have commisarry
Laura: I can call is food, but definitely not nutrition. I wrote a lengthy letter to the jail's Nutrition "people" or whatever bogus title they had the first month or so I was there. Two months later we had a questionaire going around asking us about the food. I'm not sure if it was my doing or not, but I did write a very intelligent threatening letter. I was sure half the people in jail had health problems from the food. Indigestion was something every person had in common. And I'm going to remind you every room (about 10-14 people) had ONE toilet. With no door. Commissary food was like Filet Mignon compared to jail food. I abstained, mostly because I was so depressed. This is what made nearly everyone gain weight.

JM: Did you have any favorite/least favorite meals?
Jason: No.......All
Kat: NO
JM Advice: Dinner is reported as being the nicest meal, though still not much compared to dining outside the facilities.
Brian: I guess dinner.
DavidP: No. At lunchtime, they throw you a bag, around 11. I mean, literally, they throw you a plastic bag with one piece of bologna, two pieces of bread, and one of those packets like they have at carry-out places, like a mustard and a mayonnaise or something. You get an orange with it, or an apple. So you get one piece of bologna, and it's horrible at that. You make this half-assed sandwich, and that's it. And then dinner, and that's basically no better than anything else, and that's it. So they do give you three.
keke: hell no
Teabag: It was all unfit for human consumption but ya have to eat to keep your weight up. I ate off of comissary (food purchased like a store) bags of chips, tuna fish packets, sardine packets, ramen noodles, candy. you could also purchase ketchup, BBQ sauce, hot sauce salsa to mask the taste of the food served.
Crystal: All crap, unappealing. Baloney gets old and I couldn't tolerate it so I lost a lot of weight. I also have food intolerances and got a lot of diarrhea so I ended up fasting most of the time and became very ill.
Edward: all of them were not good but i guess its not supposed to be good.
isaac: ive never eaten bolonga again
Lucky: no
Kathy: Breakfast
Lisa: no
Apache: all bad
Janet: YES THE WORST IS LUNCH, A COLD 2 INCH THICK SLICE OF BOLOGNA AND ITS HORRID!!!!
Ron: all was bad
Ryan: no well fried chicken day
Laura: Actually, yes. I enjoyed their pretzel, only thing that had salt on it. And once you learn to "jail", you take the left over salt in the empty pretzel bag and crush it up and use it for later.

JM: Were there any other snacks offered outside of meals? What was commissary like and how expensive was it?
Jason: NO
Kat: Yes from Commissary -- but you have to wait almost a week to get it after you get there.
JM Advice: Snacks are available from the commissary, but are on your own dime. They are also not usually anything substantial that could take the place of meals and you only get one commissary shopping opportunity per week, so use it wisely. Some people may offer you protection in exchange for portions of meals or entire meals - while this is obviously a personal decision decide the costs and the benefits of bartering precious meals for protection - you may be better off offering some type of commissary as opposed to meals. Commissary is ordered with money from your books which your friends or family can give you by visiting the jail with cash.
Brian: No - but inmates who had been processed and everything could order commissary.
DavidP: There's a commissary thing where people - your friends or family or something, they put money on your account. There's a special place where people can send a check to, and then it goes under your name. Once a week, you're able to order anything. That's where you get your deodorant, shampoo, you can order underwear, socks, shoelaces, snack foods, etc. No food-foods, but any kind of snack foods you can think of. You can order it once a week, and you'll get it three or four days later, and that's what you can snack on in between. That's how it goes with food.
keke: hell no
Teabag: no
Crystal: At Cermak food commissary is not allowed. Elsewhere the commissary has mostly junk food. Try to get better protein than baloney by buying and eaten tuna fish.
Edward: you can get commissary if you have money on your books.that helps alot
isaac: commissary u can can get decent stuff if u work in kitchen go to dietry real meat!!!
Lucky: if you have money on your account you can buy food.
Laydie: yes you had a snack shop where you could buy snacks
Kathy: No. You have to get money from loved ones for commissary.
Lisa: no
Apache: no
Janet: NO ONLY IF YOU PURCHASED COMMISSARY.
Ron: only on commissary
Ryan: no
Laura: Once I wrote my angry letter, along with the questionaire came a few perks. They started to give us FiberOne bars! Haha! Didn't help...