I Ate Like A Prisoner For A Week — Here's What Happened

Brent Koster has spent most of his life in Michigan State prisons. Being practically raised on prison food, he has seen the rise and fall of its quality as it’s moved from public to private food services. He’s one of the roughly 30 kitchen workers, and from behind that food line he watches juvenile delinquents, no younger than he was when he entered the system, stand in uniform cafeteria lines waiting to be served.

“I hate to admit it, but I have a number of years in, 43 years actually,” Koster, who was convicted of murder in 1973, told Medical Daily. “I went through a number of food transitions and it used to be pretty good. But when the state went through the budget cuts, it got progressively worse and worse and worse.”

The meatballs hurt his stomach, the chicken patties are indistinguishable from the fish dishes, and the inmates have come to “affectionately call the bologna cow tongue.”

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