One brave senator and a few courageous volunteers sampled the controversial prison ‘food loaf’ banned in some states that drew questions during a criminal justice budget meeting last week.

Sen. Arthenia Joyner asked prison officials last week to give her the nutritional value of the culinary concoction - also called “behavior modification loaf,” “nutri-loaf” or “suicide loaf” - used to punish misbehaving prisoners.

This morning, Department of Corrections Chief of Staff Richard Prudom arrived at the Senate committee meeting with two loaves of the questionable meal and the “special management meal” recipe.

The meeting ended without Joyner, D-Tampa, or any other committee member sampling the loaf, which resembles a holiday fruitcake with visible chunks of carrot instead of citrus.

But Chairman Victor Crist gave in when urged to try it and conducted an ad-hoc taste test with a Senate aide, a reporter and a lobbyist.

The consensus: the worst thing about the loaf is its consistency, which one guinea pig likened to “something that’s been eaten before.”

“It’s not real tasty.”

“It doesn’t smell bad.”

“It’s awful.”

The recipe calls for carrots, spinach, black-eyed peas, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, grits, water and oats.

DOC’s loaves, baked at the nearby Wakulla Correctional Institution, had an overpowering smell of spinach and a mushy consistency with a bland taste that, while far from a gastronomical delight, did not induce a gag reflex when sniffed, chewed or swallowed.

But Crist said that, with a little gravy and heated up as the recipe calls for, most people probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the loaf and genuine meat loaf.

“I don’t find anything offensive about it,” Crist, R-Tampa, said, “but it’s not something I’d order off the menu.”

Food loaf. It’s what inmates hope isn’t for dinner.

As if prison food isn’t bad enough already, naughty inmates are fed a mystery “meat” called “food loaf.”

What exactly the loaf is made up of and what prisoners do to warrant the punishing meal isn’t clear either.

“Food loaf” is also known as called “meal management loaf,” “nutri-loaf” or “behavioral loaf in prison circles. In some prisons the concoction is made up of all of the day’s food put into a blender with some oats thrown in and baked into a loaf.

It is given in some prisons to unruly inmates who throw their food trays at correctional officers and was served in the past to Florida inmates with no utensils.

Currently, inmates in Vermont are suing prison officials over the use of the food loaf and which some states have banned.

Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, asked Department of Corrections Chief of Staff Richard Prudhom at this morning’s Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations meeting morning to give her, in writing, the caloric value of the mystery package and the department policy on offenses that result in the loaf.

Prudhom said he will report back.

The state spends $2.33 a day for three meals and a snack on the 100,000 prisoners behind bars.

State Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, picked up an endorsement this morning from Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler. Gelber and fellow Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, are competing in a primary for their party’s attorney general nomination.

Seiler and Gelber were close friends during their time together in the Florida House. Seiler said he prefers to stay out of primaries, but felt compelled to make this endorsement. “We need to make sure that Alex Sink has the right person sitting next to her on the Florida Cabinet,” Seiler wrote in his endorsement, which you can read here.

Gelber’s backers have also been excited about the endorsement last week from state Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa. They point out that Joyner is from the politically crucial I-4 corridor, she’s a long-time civil rights activist and is also the first state senator to pick sides in the battle between the two members of that chamber.

Read Joyner’s endorsement here.

Rep. Steve Precourt, R-Orlando, logs on to www.PostOnPolitics.com during House session Friday to read the grand jury indictment of former House Speaker Ray Sansom, R-Destin. (AP Photo/Phil Coale)

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