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Dining Critic Tries Nutraloaf (2010)
- solardev 2y agoI wonder if you can make it taste good with some sauces and spices, and maybe air frying it a bit. It doesn't sound all that bad on paper... basically a poor man's casserole?
- vanjajaja1 2y agowe really need a chicken rice & broccoli gym bro to comment on it...
- solardev 2y agoHeh. I'm not a gym bro, just a fat lazy guy who can't cook, but I eat something similar multiple times a day (Huel, which actually does have great flavor IMO). I'd honestly be kinda excited to try more of these food-like substances.
- notahacker 2y agoJust waiting for somebody to rebrand it as a trendy meal substitute and sell it online for $8 per serving...
- Mountain_Skies 2y agoWhile nowhere near as bad as Nutraloaf, Pemmican is trendy in some niches and can carry a premium price.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoSounds a bit like MealSquares
- margalabargala 2y agoI mean, a bland nothing-flavor is essentially what tofu is. The difference is that that's used in combination with other ingredients which provide flavor, while this is served on its own.
- MattGaiser 2y agoDopamine fasting, dining version.
- extraduder_ire 2y agoThat already exists. Usually a Monotrophic diet consisting only of potatoes.
- rysertio 2y agopotatoes taste pretty good to me.
- drewcoo 2y agoObligatory Penn Jillette story: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/diet-nutrition/news/a39697/penn-jillette-weight-loss-potato-diet/ https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/diet-nutrition/news/... If you're anything like me, you're now asking "no, really, Penn, where is all that weight? what's the joke?" and you'll be disappointed.
- AlbertCory 2y agoWeight loss! Cheaper than Ozempic.
- silverquiet 2y agoI've always sort of thought when giving my dog "dog food" (presumably a mix of all the nutrition a dog would need since it's all I had to feed him), what about "human food"? Googling will quickly show you that others had the question and the answer seems that zoos do have something similar called primate chow. It would seem that Soylent was the Silicon Valley answer to the question as well, but liquid nutrition products for medical needs long predate it. I suppose I'll add Nutraloaf to my mental inventory.
- marvinboner 2y ago[flagged]
- admralprawn 2y ago[flagged]
- SilasX 2y agolol isn’t that basically what happened with lobster? Used to be inhumane to give that to prisoners too often, and now it’s delicacy? https://historyofyesterday.com/lobster-used-to-be-a-poor-mans-food-and-was-even-served-to-prisoners/ https://historyofyesterday.com/lobster-used-to-be-a-poor-man...
- Bluestein 2y agoExactly my second thought.-
- cassianoleal 2y ago> Nutraloaf contains everything from carrots and cabbage to kidney beans and potatoes, plus shadowy ingredients such as “dairy blend” and “mechanically separated poultry.” You purée everything into a paste, shape it into a loaf, and bake it for 50 to 70 minutes at 375 degrees. I once made the mistake of trying BOL power shake [0]. I imagine the thing described above tastes about the same as that. I couldn't have more than a few sips, it was absolutely disgusting. [0] https://bolfoods.com/products/salted-caramel?variant=42894768275699 https://bolfoods.com/products/salted-caramel?variant=4289476...
- ryandrake 2y agoImagine being the product designer for this stuff: "Customer's requirement is for the food to be as cruel as possible, without technically meeting the legal definition of cruelty." The article didn't say anything about the cost, but something tells me it's slightly more expensive than normal prison food. I could totally see the justice system paying more for the ability to treat prisoners worse.
- pydry 2y agoSomething tells me it probably doesnt meet your nutritional needs either. I imagine it is lacking a lot of micronutrients and/or doesnt have them in a bioavailable form.
- TechDebtDevin 2y agoI've heard that prisons design meals that use lots or soy in theory to lower agression in inmates which can cause poor health outcomes. Although I've never seen any evidence that men shouldn't eat soy based diets, considering half the world's population uses it as a main source of protein this is probably bullcrap. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/us/soy-diet-is-cruel-and-unusual-florida-inmate-claims.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/us/soy-diet-is-cruel-and-...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- smegger001 2y agoit would not surprise me thought that the type of person designing this sort of prison food would believe the whole "soyboy" myth.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoPeople also get yoked in prison so there must be enough calories and protein available in the meals to allow for that sort of muscle building and maintenance.
- 2y ago
- the_real_cher 2y ago[flagged]
- isoprophlex 2y agoAnd by sticking them into a prison-industrial complex, they will continue causing harm, it's been pretty conclusively shown. But profits and electoral clout are difficult to ignore...
- Waterluvian 2y agoOnly when you apply an abstraction to simplify a complicated world so that it’s easier for you to digest. In reality it does not hold true that all persons in jails/prisons deserve the punishment. In fact, this injustice is often perpetrated by the same people who are overwhelmed by a complicated world and vote for “tough on crime” politicians who will perpetrate the injustice to help calm their voters’ meek anxieties.
- ceejayoz 2y agoExcept treating them like shit means they are wrecked when they get out. Norway’s cushy prisons have a 20% recidivism rate to America’s 70%. A punitive criminal justice system tends to lead to more victimization (and costs!), not less.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoI think if we adopted the Norwegian system, we would still have huge amounts of recidivism, which could only be solved by wholesale reorganization of our society.
- thomascgalvin 2y agoRecidivism is a feature, not a bug. Like most institutions, America's criminal justice system is bent towards self-perpetuation, not problem solving.
- beached_whale 2y agoWhen we do cruel things, whatever the reason, we degrade ourselves and that is something we can judge them on. Judge people by how they treat those they have power or privilege over
- Electricniko 2y agoWith this being served by Aramark, you have to question if the critic got something different than what's normally served to prisoners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramark#Food_safety_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramark#Food_safety_issues
- Bluestein 2y agoThat actually crossed my mind. But judging from the article, whatever it was, it wasn't much of an experience either ...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- motohagiography 2y agomock executions are banned under most human rights conventions, and nutriloaf as described is simulated poison. given the intent is stated explicitly as removing the sense of having eaten from food, there's no consistent system of ethics where this is not torture. it makes the inmate feel like they are starving even though they aren't. I look forward to seeing a case against the manufacturer in the supreme court.
- FpUser 2y ago>"I look forward to seeing a case against the manufacturer in the supreme court." Rather than punishing tools let's punish perpetrators - the ones that came up with the idea.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago[flagged]
- p_j_w 2y ago> I look forward to seeing a case against the manufacturer in the supreme court. Unless a certain 6 of the current 9 justices miraculously find their way off the court in the next couple months, you’ll be looking forward to this practice continuing either way.
- 2y ago
- theptip 2y ago“Cruel and unusual punishment”
- siliconc0w 2y agoPalmer Luckey had this idea of paying prisons based on their recidivism rate. I imagine in such a system creative cruelty wouldn't pay.
- praptak 2y agoI think the government should be held to a higher standard when applying the law than a random Joe Citizen. Governments should be more like "don't be evil" than "intentionally find every underspecified law and stretch it to its limits to make people's lives worse". This seems like the latter.
- TechDebtDevin 2y agoThey call it a monopoly on violence for a reason.
- jerlam 2y agoAlas, people don't want to spend money to make prison better and some particularly want prison to be as bad as legally possible (or worse), under the impression that it will deter criminal behavior.
- drewcoo 2y agoWhich says as much about the state of education for the non-imprisoned as anything else . . .
- cratenbarch 2y ago[flagged]
- drekk 2y agoWell it's a great thing those punishments reduce recidivism rates, right? Right?? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6743246/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6743246/
- zarzavat 2y agoI thought that prison is there to train them to get better at committing crimes, given that society doesn’t allow them to get a straight job after they are released. Then when they get caught again they can be used for cheap labor.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- 0xbadcafebee 2y agoIt's a nice idea, in that the punishment isn't pain, it's the removal of joy. But the whole idea of disciplinary punishment is whack. It's treating the symptom rather than the cause. They're not stabbing people with sporks for no reason. They're having a conflict, and stabbing is the last resort to resolve the conflict. Nobody wants to accept the fact that prisoners are in fact human beings, motivated by the same things every human being is motivated by. If you address those motivations, instead of just waiting for something bad to happen and reacting to it, you'll have less bad things happen. But that'll never change as long as prisons are a profit-making enterprise, and our system of justice and reform is just a punitive treadmill. (as an aside: bland food won't work well on someone who lost their sense of smell from long covid, and prison populations were heavily affected)
- b112 2y agoWhere I come from, there are detention centers, and rehabilitation centers. In a detention center, you get a spoon to eat with, rehabilitation, a knife and fork. Other living conditions are inline with that. You seem to think all humans are the same, well adjusted, able to readily and happily change to live with others, and so on. The truth is, many people in jail are indeed stabbing others in jail for "no reason", as in "no reason most would consider valid". There are indeed issues with the US prison system, or so I've read, but I assure you that inmates in prisons are known, world wide, to get stabby without cause. Here's a primary example...You know you can punch someone in the head instead of stabbing, yes? This continues down to "talking instead of physical violence", but by saying stabbing is the result of poor conditions, you're saying stabbing is the sensible result of any lack of joy.
- advael 2y agoThe word "criminal" has always been an overbroad term that conflates several different levels of harm without nuance, but at this point in history I don't even believe that the majority of people incarcerated are there from doing harm to someone, nor that the people doing the most harm ever see a jail cell There's a whole body of complicated philosophy about what criminal law should do, whether it's about avenging victims or rehabilitating offenders or deterrance or profit motive, but I don't think we even need to get into that because a fundamental assumption even having that conversation requires is that the things the state locks people up for are legitimate and this is at this point the exception for me rather than the rule
- AlexCoventry 2y agoDo prisons offer any kind of accommodations for people with food allergies, gluten intolerance, etc.?
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoI drunk Soylent (and nothing else) for a month. The taste matches the taste described in the article closely. But it was marketed as food for successful startupers, not as punishment for prisoners. So it's all psychology.
- bogeholm 2y agoDo you also write for Ars Technica by any chance? :)
- karaterobot 2y ago> Of the jail’s 9,000 inmates, 21 have endured the Nutraloaf program since it began in June. One begged—No! Anything but Nutraloaf!—and another went on a hunger strike. Both men, and virtually every other Nutraloafer, straightened up enough to get back to the usual diet of oatmeal and processed bologna. If it's a punishment specifically targeted at changing behavior, it may be successful by that measure.
- octopoc 2y agoI was involved in an organization that helped inmates. It was an eye-opening experience. A lot of the younger blacks are there because they want to be there: it's where all the cool people are. So they deliberately try to get into prison. The current system is working just fine for them. Not for all blacks of course, but that seemed to be the trend. This was a medium-security state prison. The story for whites was almost universally a variant of "I don't care if the law is fair, once I'm out of here I'm going to do everything to stay out of here."
- kjkjadksj 2y agoI imagine that has to do with how welcoming the prison gangs are for the respective races. The most common white gang in prison is the aryan brotherhood and I’m guessing they are probably a pain in the ass to everyone not putting a swastika on their hand.
- octopoc 2y agoThey're not very widespread though. I don't think they had a presence at my prison. I don't think there were any other white gangs there. The mix was about 50% white / 50% black. Didn't see many Hispanics.
- Bluestein 2y ago> A lot of the younger blacks are there because they want to be there: it's where all the cool people are. That is insane ...
- hoistbypetard 2y agoThis sounds oddly similar to soylent. Not gross, but no joy in it whatsoever.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ahazred8ta 2y agoOn a more palatable note: Prison-Style Meatloaf – How to Stretch Your Meat Further - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41093796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41093796
- Bluestein 2y agoThis recipe I'm actually trying. Cut the parmesan though ...