A SCOTTISH jail has taken porridge off the menu and begun charging prisoners £1 if they want it for breakfast.
Porridge in prison is such a long-standing tradition that generations of inmates have used the word as slang for serving time.It was served free at Dumfries Prison until five weeks ago when a new breakfast menu was introduced in response to requests for fancier continental options.
The move has annoyed some prisoners, who have been told that if they want porridge for breakfast they will have to buy oatmeal at the prison shop and make it themselves.
A Scottish Prison Service spokesman dismissed suggestions of a broad protest or threatened sit-in at the jail canteen. “Prisoners don’t particularly like porridge and so Dumfries has launched a series of continental breakfasts as an alternative,” he said.
“The Scottish Prison Service is trying to encourage a balanced and healthy diet. As I understand it, the objections to this have mainly come from one prisoner who has got a bee in his bonnet about losing his free bowl of porridge.” He said that the views of inmates would be taken into account when the menus were reviewed again later this month.
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Prisoners have always been able to supplement their diet by using prison work wages, usually about £8 a week, or family pocket-money, to buy food at the prison shop.
The Scottish Prison Service recently launched a healthy eating drive to reduce salt, sugar and fat intake in jail diets.
Catherine Hankey, a nutrition expert at Glasgow University, questioned the benefits of swapping porridge for bread rolls and jam. “It depends on the type of rolls they use. Are they white or wholemeal and how much salt is in them? Will they use a spread or butter?” Dr Hankey said. “Porridge is hard to beat as a high-fibre, low-fat, low-sugar breakfast.”