Federal Prisons remove pork from the menu

[rmstock]

(Photo by Scott Suchman/For the Washington Post)
Federal Eye
Finally, the government has decided to eliminate pork — from the menu in federal prisons
By Lisa Rein October 9, 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/10/09/finally-the-government-has-decided-to-eliminate-pork-from-the-menu-in-federal-prisons/

  "The nation's pork producers are in an uproar after the federal
   government abruptly removed bacon, pork chops, pork links, ham and all
   other pig products from the national menu for 206,000 federal inmates.
   
   The ban started with the new fiscal year last week.
   
   The Bureau of Prisons, which is responsible for running 122 federal
   penitentiaries and feeding their inmates three meals a day, said the
   decision was based on a survey of prisoners' food preferences:
   
   They just don't like the taste of pork.
   
   "Why keep pushing food that people don't want to eat?" asked Edmond
   Ross, a spokesman for the prison bureau. "Pork has been the
   lowest-rated food by inmates for several years," It also apparently got
   more expensive for the government to buy, although he did not provide
   specifics.
   
   The National Pork Producers Council isn't buying it. "I find it hard to
   believe that a survey would have found a majority of any population
   saying, 'No thanks, I don't want any bacon,'" said Dave Warner, a
   spokesman for the Washington-based trade association, which represents
   the nation's hog farmers.
   
   "We're going to find out how this came about and go from there," Warner
   said. "We wouldn't rule out any options to resolve this." He said the
   association "is still formulating our strategy" to reverse the prison
   decision, which the industry first learned about Monday when the Fort
   Worth Star-Telegram called for comment.
   
   
   Source: Federal Bureau of Prisons
   
   The pork industry produces 24 billion pounds a year of pork products,
   from tenderloin to bacon, its most popular product. About a quarter of
   that is exported.
   
   Warner said pork is healthy and economical, especially for a big buyer
   like the federal government. "Not to throw beef under the bus, but we
   cost a lot less than beef."
   
   "We're nutritious," he said. "A boneless pork chop or loin is a very
   healthy alternative to lots of other foods. If you compare a pork
   tenderloin to a rib eye steak and a boneless chicken breast, we come
   out pretty well."
   
   But Ross said that based on annual surveys of inmates' food
   preferences, pork lost its luster years ago. To wit: In the last two
   years, the federal prison menu dropped to just two pork products, he
   said.
   
   "And we were paying more than what we'd like to pay," Ross said.
   
   "People are more health conscious these days," he said. "Some people
   choose to be vegetarian or vegan. That's their preference." As of last
   week, the prison menu had added an "economically viable" turkey bacon
   substitute.
   
   Incarcerated pork lovers still have an option: The prison commissary, a
   convenience store that sells packaged pork rinds and precooked bacon.
   But they have to pay.
   
   Observant Muslims and Jews are forbidden to eat pork, and the prison
   system has long made accommodations for them by providing alternatives
   to pork and halal and kosher foods. Ross declined to say whether there
   has been an increase in Muslim or Jewish inmates in recent years and
   whether that may have factored into the survey responses.
   
   "In general we welcome the change because it's facilitating the
   accommodation of Muslim inmates," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for
   the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country's largest Muslim
   civil rights advocacy group. "We hope it's not an indication of an
   increasing number of Muslims in the prison system."
   
   Hooper predicted that anti-Islam groups would spin the decision into a
   case of the federal government acting under pressure from Muslims.
   
   "This is just the kind of thing that drives them crazy," he said. "It
   will stoke the fires of Islamophobia based on the usual conspiracy
   theories."
   
  Lisa Rein covers the federal workforce and issues that concern the
   management of government."

[rmstock]

In WWII here in Holland - as per account of my mom - her family had to
hide the hog and pigs meat  in underground cellars when the Nazi's came
for a chat and some looking around.  The cellar door was covered with
at least 5 m3 of potatoes, and just after entering on the right, a bicycle
with one flat tire was placed, all as a decoy to hide the pigs meat.

[yankeedoodle]

Seems like another smuggling opportunity for the "guards" in the prisons.

[Ognir]

keep counting the shekels

[MikeWB]

US jails are now filled with blacks... many of whom are muslim. This change says it all.

[Ognir]

Most be the same in France, over 1/2 the prison population is Arab/Muslim