The Radical Root
Actionable examples of grassroots gardening, food sovereignty, and equitable food justice initiatives, empowering communities to cultivate sustainable change.
The Radical Root
Transforming Prison Nutrition With Nutrition INSIDE
This episode dives deep into the mission of Nutrition Inside, focusing on enhancing nutrition for incarcerated individuals. We explore the systemic barriers in prison food systems and the transformative power of fresh produce.
• Introduction to the Radical Root podcast and Nutrition Inside mission
• Insights from Aiden O'Connor about challenges and solutions in prison nutrition
• Value of connecting local farms with correctional facilities to promote food justice
• The role of community volunteers in supporting nutritional initiatives
If you're interested in getting involved with Nutrition Inside, visit nutritioninside.org to find out how you can help make a difference.
Welcome to the Radical Root podcast hosted by the 501c3 nonprofit Growing Gardens your go-to resource for all things radical gardening and food system advocacy.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Radical Root, where we share inspiring interviews with food system leaders who are making a difference in food justice and food sovereignty. Today, I'm sitting down with Aiden O'Connor from Nutrition Inside to talk about their work providing fresh, nutritious food for incarcerated individuals, while supporting local farms and reducing food waste. Aiden, I'm so glad to have you here. Thanks for taking the time to chat. Let's just start with the basics. Tell us about yourself, your background and how you got involved with this work. What led you to create Nutrition Inside?
Speaker 3:Yeah, awesome. Thanks so much for having me Bea. This is an awesome podcast. I have listened to a few episodes in the past, so I'm super excited to be on.
Speaker 3:And yeah, Nutrition Inside really started from the FarmLink project, which was a nonprofit that I worked with last year, and they have a nationwide approach of recovering surplus food and as part of that, I was part of the fellowship called the Field Fellowship, and one phase of that fellowship is an immersion where I got to do my immersion with Growing Gardens and I did talking about the food, learning about the food and trying to really understand what the mental implications of the food were and what the physical implications of the food were. And so I did a survey after having a few conversations and really learning how bad the food was. It's much worse than you think, unfortunately, and through that survey realized you know there's a real problem here and food has really become a form of punishment. In correctional facilities, Punishment is deliberate in most cases, but here it really comes down to them trying to keep costs as low as possible, and so I reached out to one of the food service managers at CRCI and that's kind of how it all started.
Speaker 2:That's so amazing. I know through our work with Lettuce Grow that this work is so important and I'm always inspired to hear the backstories and the different ways that people are going about tackling these food justice issues. We know that food and correctional facilities, as you mentioned is not great, to say the least. It's highly processed, it's lacking in nutrition, any fresh ingredients and it could even pose health risks in far too many cases. So how does Nutrition Insideight specifically address those issues?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a phenomenal question, and US inmates are more likely to have a contractive flu-borne illness than the general population, which just says a lot.
Speaker 3:And the way that we address that is through our immediate impact, which is doing weekly deliveries, bringing in fresh fruits and vegetables and other nutritious foods with the correctional facilities that we work with currently.
Speaker 3:But on a larger, more broad spectrum, we really see this as a conversation that we're starting, trying to get our foot in the door and say, hey, how can we make the food better? And you know, right now they're getting it for free and so it's kind of hard for them to pass it off and not accept it, and so when we're giving them free food and they're incorporating that into the meals, that becomes something that maybe allows them in the future to accept more of that fresh and nutritious food. So, yeah, really making that relationship between local farms and the prisons is really important to us and then kind of also highlighting hey, you know, a lot of these food recovery nonprofits are only thinking about the 40 million people who get counted as food insecure in the US, but adults in custody, while they do have access to consistent food, that consistent food is most times more harmful than it is healthful, and so really highlighting that aspect of it as well.
Speaker 2:It's incredible to see how different groups are stepping up to meet these challenges in such creative ways, and it sounds like your model brings together food recovery and farm partnerships and direct distribution to prisons. Can you walk us through exactly how Nutrition Inside works and why this approach has been so impactful?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So how Nutrition Inside works is it really starts with getting to know the kitchen managers that we're working with, and so we will go and, thanks to the Let Us Grow program and the partnerships they've developed, we are able to go and meet with food service managers and say, hey, what are the certain foods that would be easiest for you to accept right now? And you know, sometimes they'll have a list or they'll say, you know, these are the things that we use a lot of. You know like they get apples and oranges, for example. And so then we think, ok, what are some of the foods that are going to be lowest maintenance, easiest to use, that they can kind of just add on or incorporate very easily into meals and try to go out and find that food.
Speaker 3:Part of this which I have really been fortunate enough to have a lot of help on, I have about 20 volunteers who are all recent Lewis and Clark graduates and that's where I went, lewis and Clark College and we have all been working on this idea really since the first delivery happened. And so, yeah, I really want to like give a shout out to all the people who have been helping me with this, with this project because they have been so impactful and, you know, are the reason that we're here today. So when we do that outreach aspect, it's really making these personal phone calls, trying to really get to know the farmers that we're working with, finding connections, finding areas of collaboration and trying to support farmers as much as we can. We want to make it as easy as possible for them to donate their surplus and, yeah, finding ways to do that.
Speaker 2:So not only do you say, hey, we're doing this for free, but you work directly with the kitchens, ask them what they need. You basically walk in and say how can I help you? What is it I can get for you? You take their order and you go out and find partners, and then you drop it off for free, like there's no way to say no to a project like that. It's that's incredible, and I love hearing about the different ways that people take action like this. There's no one size fits allfits-all solution, and this is what makes this kind of food system advocacy so dynamic. Navigating food access in the prison system, though, has got to come with its own set of unique challenges, and I know this through Lettuce Grow. What roadblocks have you encountered, whether systemic, logistical or financial, and how have you worked your way through those?
Speaker 3:That's a great question, and I think a lot of people, when they first hear about our project, are like how are you able to work with the prison system in this way and aren't there a lot of limitations to it? And there are some limitations, but thankfully, again, with our partnership with Let Us Grow, you know they've been doing this for so long and so they're really able to help us figure out, you know, what we can do and what we can't do, especially in terms of donating things to prisons, and so that's been really helpful for us just to have that kind of advisory board. And then navigating the food donation process itself has really been simple. We usually just have the kitchen managers actually come out with carts into the parking lot and just pick up the food and they take it in themselves, and so it's really not too difficult for them to get their donations inside.
Speaker 3:And then, in terms of other barriers, I'd say the messaging or I guess the outreach aspect of this project has been one of the other hurdles. Trying to find partners that are consistent, that are able to give us enough food to feed at least 600 people, because that's the smallest prison that we work with, has been pretty challenging. And also, you know, when you first tell somebody about this project, they're probably thinking to themselves don't adults in custody get fed? Aren't our tax dollars going to that? And the answer is yes, but unfortunately it's around $2.30 per person a day. That is really integral to getting people on board.
Speaker 2:This is so interesting because I had kind of assumed that the hurdles would be on the correctional facility end and it sounds like most of these things you're the prisons, you don't go into the correctional facilities, they just come out and collect it from you, so it kind of cuts out all of the red tape on that other end. Very interesting and not what I was expecting to hear. So I love that, and hearing these challenges is so valuable because it reminds us that progress with these projects is not going to be a straight line. It takes resilience and adaptation and you just got to keep finding new ways to push forward. For those of you that are listening and that want to address food insecurity, food waste or maybe even advocate for better nutrition inside correctional institutions in your own areas, what are some key lessons you've learned that can help other food system advocates get started?
Speaker 3:Awesome. Yeah, that's a great question, and I guess my first answer to that would just to say please get started. If you are interested in this, try something, because I just read the report from REFED, which is this food waste tracking organization, and they reported about 74 million tons of food was accounted for in surplus just in 2023. And so that's about 120 billion meals. And so there is so much surplus being created in the US year after year, and we just need to figure out how to have people go and find it and pick it up and take it to people who need it. And so there is room.
Speaker 3:There is a lot of room for more organizations like this, and I think that's really a strong lesson that I learned from the FarmLink project is just start where you know. Start as small as you can. We started with 200 persimmons and now we've moved almost 4,000 pounds of food. It's really just about, yeah, taking that first jump in the food recovery space at least. And then, if you're really interested in carceral nutrition, I would say a first step for me would be figure out how to get on the inside A lot of programs like Let Us Grow or the Inside Out program, where they have these experiences where you prison system is purposely opaque and it tries to make it so that we don't have access to it and that we other those people, and we really shouldn't do that. They are people and they deserve not just good food but to be treated with dignity, and so I think, yeah, if you're leaning towards that, just try to figure out how you can get inside your prisons that are around you and where you want to take action most.
Speaker 2:Amazing advice, because anyone who's listening to this podcast already knows the problems are out there, right, but the resources are out there too, and it's just about getting up, making a plan, taking action and just connecting the dots for those people. At the end of this is people and connection, so it's just about making those connections, and I hope this conversation helps more of our listeners feel inspired to take action in their own way at home as well. Thank you so much for joining us today, aiden. We're excited to have you back to talk about future updates.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I would love to just again shout out all my volunteers who have helped me so much, and if you're looking to get involved with Nutrition Inside, go to nutritioninsideorg and you can contact me there.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you and for our listeners out there. Change starts with those small actions, and conversations like this remind us that we all have a role to play in shaping a more just food system. Whether you're growing food, organizing in your community or maybe just starting to rethink your relationship with the food that's on your plate, every single little step matters. You can find the links and the details in our show notes everything we talked about today, some information about Nutrition Inside and our Let Us Grow program, and for more resources, you could always just visit our website at growing-gardensorg. Keep growing, keep pushing and let's build something better together. Dot org.
Speaker 1:Keep growing, keep pushing and let's build something better together. Thank you for tuning in to the Radical Root podcast hosted by the 501c3 nonprofit Growing Gardens. To learn more about our work or to donate to keep our programs and services thriving, please visit us at growing-gardensorg. While you're there, don't forget to download your free copy of the Radical Gardening Resource Guide your step-by-step action path to a greener future for us all.