Hello Ethical Comrades,

I have been struggling to live my vegan lifestyle while incarcerated since my arrest for a horrific accident back in 2017. For two and a half years, while I was in county jail, and the most conservative court in the State was taking its time deciding my fate, I subsisted on under-cooked beans, overcooked rice, and a dollop of peanut butter a day. I kept attempting to communicate in good faith with their medical staff that my dietary needs (such as B-12 vitamins) were not being met, but they insisted that their “nutritionists” knew more about my diet than I did. I was eventually given a very long sentence for Manslaughter, but consoled myself with the hope that I would at least be able to eat ethically and sustainably once I got to actual prison; however, I have now been in a State prison since 2019, and I can attest that it is yet more of the same: punishment for breaking from the meat-eating status quo. Even as the Abrahamic monotheistic religions receive every possible accommodation, ethics-based, gods-free, Hindu Jane, and Zen Buddhist inmates receive no such dietary consideration. We are forced to either compromise our health and become malnourished, or else compromise our ethics and partake in the tortured corpse-flesh of the innocent.

I have no conception of what sort of influence your organization may or may not have on the State level, but it is surely more influence than a prisoner such as I. I do, however, have some ideas for a switch to plant-based diets in American prisons. Kindly consider the following:

• First, a mandatory plant-based diet may be the best, most ethical form, of rehabilitation for the sort of violent, bloody-minded meat eaters that I now live alongside.
• Next, prison-wide plant-based diets would be more compassionate and healthier, reducing healthcare costs for the State by alleviating such conditions as heart disease in prisoners.
• Further, money will also be saved by the State through the reduction of labor and the prep costs of handling corpse-flesh.
• Finally, no special religious considerations will need to be made since no religion requires the consumption of meat, only abstinence from it.

In conclusion, a plant-based prison diet will free the State to not only feed rehabilitating citizens healthier, cleaner, and tastier food, but will also save on costs and unnecessary hassle for its employees.

Thank you.