What is the food like in prison? Task
When you are in prison, you will be given three meals a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner), one of which will be a hot meal.
The prison staff must make sure you are given enough food and that the food is safe, healthy and varied. All food must be stored, prepared and served according to safety and hygiene regulations.
The exact food you get will depend on the prison but meals in prison are usually inexpensive and easy to store and prepare.
- Breakfast is usually a pack containing cereal, milk, whitener, tea and coffee sachets.
- Lunch might be a sandwich or a portion of pasta, with some fruit, crisps or biscuits.
- Dinner might be curry, pie, baked fish or casserole, with rice, vegetables or potatoes, and dessert or fruit.
You will have access to drinking water at all times. You should also be able to have at least four hot drinks a day, such as tea or coffee.
Generally, you won’t have a choice at breakfast, but you will be able to choose your lunch and dinner. You will get a menu in advance with several meal options to choose from. Your meal times, where you eat and the portions of food will be decided by the prison staff.
Special diets are diets that are required for medical, religious, cultural or ethical reasons (for example diabetic, halal, kosher, vegetarian and vegan diets). The prison staff must provide you with meals that meet your medical, religious or ethical dietary requirements and special diets must be stored, prepared and served according to religious, cultural and other special dietary requirements.
Your prison will tell you when and where meals will be served. You will usually have meals with other prisoners at a set time and place.
11 replies on “What is the food like in prison?”
Hi just read your page about prison food. After serving five months at HMP Lincoln, I would like to add a few things. With lunch, you will typically receive a bottle or carton of spring/flavoured water. With a sandwich, I normally got one or two pieces of fruit or a chocolate bar/biscuits
Breakfast packs consist of either rice Krispies, Weetabix (2 packs), cornflakes or nesquick cereal. However, while serving my sentence, toast was brought around the wing by kitchen workers and you got two slices with butter and jam. This could due to COVID and breakfast packs were still being given in the evening
You sometimes get a carton of chocolate milk with your lunch or evening meal (generally on weekends)
With the breakfast packs, you receive some terrible tea bags that nobody drinks (they’re cheap and nasty), a carton of UHT milk, sugar, whitener and coffee. Coffee was also given out on certain days as a treat. (A week’s worth of Maxwell House sachets which aren’t too bad)
On Wednesday evening with our meal, we were served a bowl of rice pudding on top of the usual snacks.
Hey Anon user – I’m doing research into prison food for a TV drama, based and set in Leeds
I’ve got some questions about what the food is served on or in – is it plastic plates and bowls, or segmented trays?
Did you have cutlery for the main meal, was it plastic?
What did the breakfast pack come in, was it given to you in a sealed bag, or paper bag or something?
Hi Nicola, do you still require more information?
Try swaleside prison kent, the prisoners dont even get the minimum required calories most days, the food is often so poor its binned the prisoners that cant afford to buy from the overpriced canteen either go hungry or borrow beg and steal causing high levels of violence in there, should you get held up you may end up with nothing, the evening meal is insufficient for a grown man often a basically empty roll a small bag of crisps and a kiwi, then a milk and child sized cereal for breakfast its a disgrace the only time the food is close to reasonable is when they get a visit from the muppets to do their reports so the prison gets away with it
Sounds like a 3rd world country prison 🤔
My son said with lunch and dinner you are given 4 slices of bread with noth meals, maybe its to fill you up, but not very healthy.
My son is in Swinfen Hall, he is loosing so much weight from lack of food, it breaks my heart. They get two meals a day, breakfast is porridge and toast, lunch is chips, sandwich and crisps. Where is the nutrition in this, they are supposed to top up their meals with commissary, the prices are the same as outside, not subsidised. What are people supposed to do if they don’t have someone to give them money for extras
I know they are in prison for a reason, but starving them is abuse, something needs sorting,
MOST PRISONERS ARE NOT MURDERS OR RAPISTS A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER ARE ADDICTS AND HAVE MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS KEEPING THEM BANGED UP 23 HOURS A DAY OFTON IN POOR CONDITIONS AND CAN DO NOTHING BUT DAMAGE THEIR MENTAL HEALTH WHERE IS THE REHABILITATION NON EXISTENT IN MOST PRISONS I SUSPECT NO WONDER THERE IS SUCH IMA HIGH SUICIDE RATE IN UK PRISONS.
At least they won’t get diabetes lol
my son in pentonville tells me they have very little food and what they do have is practically inedible . They have to suppliment it with food they can buy from the canteen which they then cook in a kettle in their cell . they are not given any fresh water
they have to share a cell for one person so there is no privacy using the toilet
there is no rehabillitation or activities and unless they have a job they are locked up for most of the day
Its dehumanising
My partner is currently serving in Highpoint after what can only be described as a tour of all prisons in the UK The food has never been great, but this place is abysmal fully grown men reaching for scraps and eating lettuce between half a slice of bread and a little bit of rice if you’re lucky just so they can feel a little full when they can buy from the canteen. They mess it up and are left with miniature size cereal no milk And that’s on a good day prisoners that are far away from home. Don’t get family visits so spend half their money on the phone with nothing much left to Top Up for food. It’s like a POW camp, my heartbreaks for all that are stuck in the churn! I could carry on as I have a list. As long as my arm I feel to go to the papers. Something must be done a petition to help these lads that have already been punished enough.