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Nutraloaf, the punitive food that prisoners argue violates their constititional rights.

Can it be "cruel and unusual" to serve a prisoner nothing but a nutrition loaf? Maybe you don't think the answer depends on how bad it tastes, but in case you do, here's Arin Greenwood taste test. He cooks up the Illinois, Vermont, and 2 versions of the California nutraloaves and swerves serves them to a bunch of "friends and relatives" (half of them lawyers):

I picked some off my plate with my fingers. It tasted a bit like vegetarian chili. Not bad. My cousin Steve, a mortgage broker who had sampled the California loaf with meat, disagreed. "It's what you imagine Alpo tastes like," he said. Lori said she liked it and said she'd even consider making it again, though she'd use more spices. Lee, a lawyer and her husband, asked her not to....

As the night went on, and wine washed away the taste of loaves, we discussed the Eighth Amendment and how bad food would actually have to be in order to be unconstitutional....

This was an okay article ? good enough to blog ? but I'd much rather see this material in the form of a film documentary. There is a dimension here ? the social setting and attitudes of Washington lawyers and others ? that seems fascinating, but that Greenwood barely lets us glimpse. How did they really talk about law and prison and their own fussy tastes?

UPDATE: Uh-oh:

[T]he arts and culture writers at The Onion's A.V. Club did this same stunt last April!

The A.V. Club story of the Nutraloaf stunt is more entertaining, because it has more unappetizing photos and even a little video! ... They all agreed that it was gross, so this Slate version could've been much more Slate-y if they'd decided it was actually delicious.

Full post as published by Althouse on June 24, 2008 (boomark / email).