Food Behind Bars

PROFITEROLES IN PRISON 💥🧈👩🏼🍳👌🏼 Today we got stuck in at HMP Downview and baked some beautiful profiterole Christmas wreaths with the women. We’ve been delivering a cookery programme at the prison for the last 5 months, led by our absolute powerhouse Food Educator Helz, who is a Recipe Developer at BBC Good Food the rest of the time! 💪🏼 Around 45 women have joined us in the kitchen so far, and we’ve cooked up a bit of everything, from curries to gnocchi, brownies and bhajis 🧅 Today we got festive and ran a Downview bake-off where the women learnt how to make profiteroles from scratch, filled them with a delicious Biscoff cinnamon cream, and got creative with the decorations 🎄 Every session has been a joy at Downview and the women have relished the opportunity to cook delicious food and enjoy it together. We can’t wait to be back in the new year! 💫

🥗 Our 'Action Plan for Greener Prisons' report highlights that increased access to nature, including horticulture and gardening activities, could improve the mental health and wellbeing of prison inmates. Drawing on this research, SFT's Senior Research Officer, Imogen Crossland, explores the rehabilitative potential of growing, cooking and eating good food in prisons, and shares some of the great work already being done by charities like Food Behind Bars to improve the state of prison food systems. Scroll through to find out more 👉 and visit our website to read the full article: https://lnkd.in/gkzPb4Ub #Rehabilitation #FoodBehindBars #PrisonReform | The Clink Charity Food Matters

We recently asked three men currently serving prison sentences to keep a food diary ahead of a new project we are about to start. They recorded everything they ate and drunk across the course of a week. This includes meals from the servery, as well as items purchased from canteen (the prison shop). We met all three of the men this week and got to discuss the food diaries further. There was a self-confessed ‘fussy eater’ who avoided the meals from the prison menu entirely and was living on a diet mainly consisting of crisps, biscuits and noodles. We estimated he was probably eating less than 1000 calories a day. There was one individual who was eating his breakfast pack and prison lunch (usually a pasty), but repurposing bits of his evening meal into a ‘kettle whip’ meal, made with a few items from canteen and cooked in his cell kettle. And there was a gym goer who was trying to be strict and focus on protein. He was avoiding bread, so tended to have a snack from canteen instead of the prison lunch, and usually had the dinner in some form. What do all three of these men’s diets have in common? 🥦 A lack of fresh fruit and veg. None are getting their minimum 5 a day. 🍫 Sugar before bed. All of them are tucking into sweets, chocolate and biscuits before bed. 🍜 A lack of variety. Most are following the same or similar diet everyday. 🍪 A reliance on canteen. All of them are supplementing their diets heavily with convenience items purchased from canteen. Every prison is different and every person in prison is an individual, with their own tastes and eating habits. But we do tend to see the same trends crop up again and again, and these three men offer us a window into what a ‘typical prison diet’ might be. They are forming an important part of this new project, helping us develop the menu and hopefully impact their diets as a result.

Did you know about our Food Behind Bars Wellbeing Guide? We produced this booklet dedicated to taking care of your wellbeing in prison a few years ago, as part of a project at HMP Wealstun. Copies were kept on the induction wing and handed out to every new arrival at the prison. We’ve recently updated the content and shared copies with some of our prison partners, HMP Manchester and HMP Send. We’re also supporting HMP Belmarsh to make their own version. Recipes now feature dishes from our recently kitchenette cooking course, focusing on cooking with limited equipment and with ingredients from canteen. Cell workouts, nutritional advice, yoga practices and breath work are all included too, as well as our favourite page containing tips from serving prisoners about what they do to support their health and wellbeing 🧠🪴🥗🏋🏼♀️ This booklet will form part of our Prison Food Education Programme which we’re piloting in early 2025. Every prison who enrolls in the programme will receive enough copies of the booklet for the whole population to help support their wellbeing - a perfect pairing with improvements being made to the menu as well.

Our Chief Executive Lucy and FBB Baker Trainer during a recent bakery training session at HMP Woodhill 👩🏻🍳 As part of our project with the prison, we worked with the staff and prisoners to switch up some of their processed baked goods into homemade alternatives. Isaac ran an intensive 2 days of training in the prison kitchen, before ending it all with a *very* popular tasting where everyone got to try what they made before they went on the main prison menu. Our bakes included: 🍪 Vegan oat and raisin bars 🍠 Sweet potato cake 🥟 Cheese and onion pasties 🍍 Pineapple upside down cake 🍎 Spiced apple cake 🫐 Blueberry muffins A comforting, homemade sweet treat is a huge mood-booster in prison. Many of the men told us that having a freshly made cake or a delicious cookie did a huge amount for their emotional wellbeing. It’s all about balance and we’re super pleased to see Woodhill serve so many home-baked items. Next stop: bread! 🥖

Our Chief Executive Lucy and FBB Baker Trainer during a recent bakery training session at HMP Woodhill 👩🏻🍳 As part of our project with the prison, we worked with the staff and prisoners to switch up some of their processed baked goods into homemade alternatives. Isaac ran an intensive 2 days of training in the prison kitchen, before ending it all with a *very* popular tasting where everyone got to try what they made before they went on the main prison menu. Our bakes included: 🍪 Vegan oat and raisin bars 🍠 Sweet potato cake 🥟 Cheese and onion pasties 🍍 Pineapple upside down cake 🍎 Spiced apple cake 🫐 Blueberry muffins A comforting, homemade sweet treat is a huge mood-booster in prison. Many of the men told us that having a freshly made cake or a delicious cookie did a huge amount for their emotional wellbeing. It’s all about balance and we’re super pleased to see Woodhill serve so many home-baked items. Next stop: bread! 🥖

We’re so thrilled to introduce you to the latest Food Educator to join the FBB team, Helena Busiakiewicz (@helz__kitchen) 🍜 Helena is a chef, home economist and food stylist. She currently heads up the BBC Good Food test kitchen where she oversees all the recipe testing for the website and magazine! 🥟 Helena has long been a supporter of the charity, and has previously delivered guest chef sessions as well as cooking up a storm at some of our fundraising events 👩🏻🍳 Her food is fresh, delicious, fun and exciting - scroll through and see some of her brilliant food 🍤 Helena will be running a new cooking programme at HMP Downview, a women’s prison in Surrey. We can’t wait to get stuck in later this summer and for Helena to share some of her amazing skills and knowledge with the women there.

We are so excited to introduce our brand new Food Educator, Kerry. She will be running a brand new cookery course based on the wing kitchenettes at HMP Manchester 👩🏻🍳 This is a unique chance to really have an impact on the diets of the population at Manchester. It’s rare for any form of self catering to be available in Victorian prisons such as Manchester, but it provides a much needed opportunity for prisoners to have some autonomy over their diets, by cooking delicious, budget-friendly food. Kerry will be teaching them how to make simple & nutritious food that utilises canteen ingredients, all produced with limited equipment. Whether it’s loaded air fryer tortilla chips, salt & pepper chicken & roasted veg or healthy homemade pot noodles, we can’t wait to get going. 🥗

A report was released by HM Inspectorate of Prisons today into HMP Five Wells, one of the government’s newest ‘super prisons’ housing 1700 men. Sometimes people associate the issue of poor quality prison food with our older, crumbling Victorian jails, but this report is a reminder that every type of prison struggles with the issue of food. In fact, the sheer size of these newer prisons makes it even harder to provide healthy, freshly-prepared meals. 1700 mouths to feed, 29 serveries to deliver meals to and countless special diets to consider makes it a tough job for any catering team. But pasta and potatoes is simply not good enough and a long way from an adequate and nutritionally-balanced meal 🍝 🥔 It is possible to produce high quality food in prison, regardless of the size of the establishment and the logistics that catering teams are faced with. We try and inspire change in prison kitchens by encouraging people to cook with care, get the best out of the ingredients and consider the individual collecting that plate of food from the wing servery at lunchtime. Little changes can make the biggest difference and we know that better is possible.