Like many Americans, I’ve struggled with weight for much of my life. I’ve tried dieting, working out, and changing my lifestyle, all with little success. The potential health consequences have started to catch up with me. Earlier this year, in an examination room at Eastern NY Correctional Facility, in upstate New York, my doctor delivered a stern message: If I wanted to avoid having a heart attack, I needed to start eating healthier.
To support my weight loss and decrease my blood pressure, the doctor prescribed Zepbound, a GLP-1. I felt something between grateful and hopeful and shocked that the state prison system would approve such a medication. Soon, I was receiving 2.5 mg injections once a week.
It wasn’t long before I started to see the effects. Fat loss, it turns out, is only part of the picture. You start losing muscle too, making adequate protein intake an important part of treatment. After my first few months on the drug, I noticed my shoulders, naturally broad and slightly defined, beginning to lose their heft and tone.
As the GLP-1 revolution roars on, Americans have also been bombarded with warnings about the perils of ultraprocessed foods and the supposed benefits of increased protein. Walk the aisles of any grocery store, my wife tells me, and the packaging of many products — from cereal and yogurt to peanut butter, coffee and chips — wears its grams-of-protein-per-serving like a triumphant badge.
I want to follow my doctor’s advice to stay away from junk food and opt for healthy foods rich in protein and other nutrients. But the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision has made that difficult. Many of us locked up in prisons across the state remain dependent on exactly the foods public health officials and our doctors warn against.
The inadequacy of prison food is well documented. Late last year, the Correctional Association of New York, an independent prison watchdog group, analyzed the state’s prison food system and concluded: “The General Confinement Menu provides insufficient servings of fruit, vegetables, protein foods, and whole grains on average per day.”
But even at the commissary or in vendor-ordered packages, where we have slightly more options, we don’t fare much better in the protein department. In fact, New York explicitly bans the ordering of “vitamin, nutrient or protein-enriched food or drink mixes.”
That misguided policy, which was fully implemented in 2023 due to “contraband control,” has clashed with our protein-crazy wellness culture in ways that have made it even harder for those of us behind bars to eat healthy.
After my doctor’s warning, I cut back on buying food from commissary, which is largely stocked with shelf-stable, ultra-processed foods like candy, soda, prepackaged meats and pouches of fish. Instead, I began ordering more from outside retailers we can typically use, like Amazon. Wanting to follow my doctor’s order, I bought foods like oatmeal, yogurt, quinoa and SuperBeets. I also wanted to get healthier versions of the snacks I’d been getting for years: Kashi and Clif bars, Belvita Soft Baked breakfast bars and Special K products.
But I soon discovered that many of these items were prohibited under the policy banning nutrient- and protein-enriched foods. Again and again over the last year, I went to the package room to pick up my order and was forced to decide how to deal with the denied items, including yogurt and quinoa. Typically, guards gave me one of four options. I could have the product destroyed; donated; held for 14 days during which a visitor could retrieve the item; or mailed to a loved one or back to the sender, which we have to pay for. I’ve faced these choices dozens of times.
The most frequently denied items I order are those explicitly marketed as protein enriched, which covers pretty much anything with “protein” announced on the packaging. Then there are the items that advertise themselves as being “high in protein,” “an excellent source of fiber,” or “rich in calcium,” which are sometimes allowed in.
For me, the policy’s consequences have been felt in more intimate ways.
Before all of the nation’s protein madness, my wife and I looked forward to ordering food packages together. We did this over a phone call as she shopped for me in a grocery store. It gave her peace of mind knowing I had foods I enjoyed that were healthier than those sold in commissary. For me, it was a brief escape from prison. I’d close my eyes and imagine we were walking through a grocery store together as she picked up items and asked whether I wanted them before tossing them into the cart.
That process is no longer simple or enjoyable. It’s time-consuming, tedious and demoralizing. During a typical order, we would find foods lower in sodium or sugar, or higher in protein, or made with healthier ingredients, only to discover I wasn’t permitted to receive them.
What once felt like an ordinary act of caring for one another became another reminder of how little control incarceration leaves you over basic life decisions, including your health.
These days, I stick to a few staples I’m confident will get in: instant oatmeal; different types of nut mixes; packs of tuna, salmon and chicken; turkey sticks; and beef jerky — all of which fortunately boost my protein intake. But I have to be careful, as most prepackaged foods are loaded with sodium, so I search for low-sodium versions or opt for less salty flavors.
New York spends billions of dollars each year operating its prison system, much of it on an aging population with high rates of chronic illness. Diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, obesity, and other diet-related conditions require expensive medications, specialist care, hospitalizations, transportation and long-term treatment. Improving nutrition will not eliminate all those costs, but healthier diets can reduce the risk and severity of chronic disease.
Allowing incarcerated people to make healthier choices through approved vendors would cost the state nothing, while supporting the same preventive strategies physicians recommend outside prison.
I often think about my doctor’s advice: Eat healthier if I want to avoid a heart attack. I think about my family and all the things I hope to one day do as a free man. But I can’t shake the thought that my health — and potentially my life — may be at risk because of what I can, and can’t, eat.
Devin A. Giordano is an incarcerated writer, journalist, and senior undergraduate student in the Bard Prison Initiative, currently serving a 20 years-to-life sentence in the New York State Department of Corrections under the felony murder law.
In an emailed statement, the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision public information office wrote that the policy on protein-rich food was established “due to security reasons, contraband control, and standardization protocols.”
They added that, “The Department's General Confinement Menu is developed and reviewed to meet recommended nutritional requirements and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The Department regularly reviews the menu through its Nutritional Services team and dietician and uses feedback from incarcerated individuals to identify areas for potential adjustment. The Department remains committed to ensuring incarcerated individuals are provided sufficient and nutritious food.”
