Vegan Diet it Prison??

[Ryan Salo]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,369004,00.html

I think killing your 5 week old should take away your food choices.

Next there will be prisoners who find a new age religion that allows only steak and lobster.

So so many rights and yet no responsibility...

[Bill Call]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,369004,00.html

I think killing your 5 week old should take away your food choices.

Next there will be prisoners who find a new age religion that allows only steak and lobster.

So so many rights and yet no responsibility...

You are part of what Peggy Noonan calls the "old America". Anyway, killing a five week old is just a post fetal abortion so what's the dif?

[ryan costa]

A vegan diet would be cheaper than a meat-rich diet. It would also keep prisoners weaker and more docile. He may even die sooner. I'm not seeing how the public loses in this case.

In my conservative moments I've often advocated putting violent prisoners on bread and water diets for weeks at a time.

[Phil Florian]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,369004,00.html

I think killing your 5 week old should take away your food choices.

Next there will be prisoners who find a new age religion that allows only steak and lobster.

So so many rights and yet no responsibility...

This strikes me as outrage for the sake of outrage. The fact that this is news even is kind of strange. We send criminals to jail to reform. When they do and accept some sort of religion, we should at least support a basic tennant of it. If this person converted to Christianity and was denied a Bible, I am sure Fox News would be all over the denial of his rights in that case.

Buddhist beliefs are hardly a "new age" religion (being one of the larger religions in the world). I am sure what the story isn't showing is the dozens if not hundreds or even thousands of similar requests for said new age religious exceptions that the prison can legally deny. What else do prisoners have to do but spend time filing complaints? This one isn't unreasonable and as noted is probably a lot cheaper and spare than the regular diet. You can always ask for less and in this case it was accepted.

[Ryan Salo]

Last time I checked for pricing on catered food mass producing one kind of meal is much less expensive then custom meals... so if your argument is this is cheaper it is probably not, unless everyone was forced to eat vegan.

Break the law = less rights.

So if pigs offend a prisoner - which in some religions it may, should no one around them be allowed to eat it?

Come on this is ridiculous, this is a PRISON!

[ryan costa]

vegan food is mostly grains and seeds and tubers and beans and stuff. it has a long shelf life. it doesn't even need to be refrigerated. mostly you just boil or steam it for a few minutes. Prison food is cooked by other prisoners. they've got nothing but time on their hands.

[Phil Florian]

Last time I checked for pricing on catered food mass producing one kind of meal is much less expensive then custom meals... so if your argument is this is cheaper it is probably not, unless everyone was forced to eat vegan.

Break the law = less rights.

So if pigs offend a prisoner - which in some religions it may, should no one around them be allowed to eat it?

Come on this is ridiculous, this is a PRISON!

Ryan said it best above but this isn't some crazy expensive diet. Maybe he could be made to grow his own food and prepare it himself. Give him something positive to do. Again, to me this falls into a thing you want to be upset about but I am not sure why. The slippery slope follow up arguments are weird, too (Lobster! Pigs!). If we are going to talk slippery slope arguments (and I would guess there have been complaints about stuff you brought up but they never made it to court) then I again say that if this were about a convert to Christianity being denied a Bible the article and tone would have been significantly different.

Just because you have less rights (this guy can't leave, lives in a cage among other monsters, etc.) doesn't mean we have to find new ways to demean him.

This guy is in for life so in a sense, who cares. He could become saved but it won't matter (except for maybe his chosen religion but thankfully he picked one without a Hell in it).

But the fact is that prisons are places where most of the folks will be getting out and we would hope they leave there better people than when they went it. Respecting a legitimate religion's food preferences (your pork concern would be of interest to at least one or two other major religions, right?) isn't a big deal and maybe, just maybe, this person's conversion is real. Maybe someone else will pick up on this, too.

I don't see the outrage for this. Maybe my outrage meter is tapped but there are so many worse things out there to be upset about involving prisons. The fact that they don't make a person better is one thing. The fact that the focus is always on punishment over rehabilitation is another. The fact that in our system, we punish people long after they have "paid their dues to society" by making it almost impossible to return to the workforce which likely sends them spiraling back into the behavior that made them a burden to society in the first place as criminals. And so on. But come on, upset over giving the guy beans, rice and veggies? Sheesh.

[ryan costa]

maybe they should have the general diet be vegan. Meat, eggs, cheese, etc can be some kind of reward for extra work or progress.

[Jim DeVito]

Even vegan is better than Prison Loaf Ummmm