Mike Tyson spent three years in prison, and the worst part about it, he says, was the food.

Boxing legend Mike Tyson sat down with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the latter's podcast, The Secretary Kennedy Podcast, and talked about everything from his early days, his glorious career, and his weight loss journey. During the interview, their conversation shifted towards the quality of food in prisons.

While discussing America’s food culture, Kennedy described the poor-quality food he was served during his incarceration in Puerto Rico in 2001, to which Tyson agreed. Tyson, who had previously served time, said inmates are fed unhealthy, highly processed foods.

"When I was in prison and on the commissary, we had donuts, sugar, potato chips, nothing healthy. Maybe, um, the healthiest thing there was the contaminated soup that we ate. Over-salted soup. But it was all horrible stuff. Now that I think about it, it was great back then cuz I was eating it, but back then it was just horrible food."

He argued that the food worsens an inmate's emotional instability, which results in violence inside correctional facilities. The three-time world champion argued that instead of helping the inmates prepare for the outside world, many prisons create more unstable individuals who eventually return to crime.

“You can’t put a guy in there fighting and cutting and eating horrible food, then let him go.”

Contrasting Kennedy's claim of prisons, rehabilitating individuals, he put forward the reality faced by most prisoners, who leave prison more damaged than when they entered, intelligently placing it as a “revolving door” effect in which former inmates repeatedly return to incarceration.

In 1992, Mike Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison, plus four years of probation. He served three of the six years and was released on parole in 1995. The opinion he shared was based on his own experience, but the topic of prison food in the USA is much deeper than it looks.

Reality of Prison Food in the USA

The Guardian reported author Leslie Soble's book Eating Behind Bars, which detailed how food served in many US prisons is just ultra-processed foods, cheap carbohydrates, sodium-heavy ingredients, and low-quality proteins.

The book is based on the accounts of several ex-inmates who reported eating contaminated meals. Research conducted around prisons claims that consuming prison food leads to chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension.

The book also argues that prison food is a symbol of how society values incarcerated people. The inmates often create make-do meals from commissary items to feel some kind of comfort. The much darker truth is that inmates are not allowed to eat the food they grow or freshly prepare.

It is a crisis that needs to be dealt with immediately.

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Written by

Ruwa Javed

Edited by

Ashvinkumar Patil