One Man's Mission to Bring Better Ramen to the Incarcerated

June 29, 2018 10:38 AM

People in U.S. prisons often supplement their meager meals with ramen -- it's cheap, doesn't spoil quickly, and is easy to prepare. However, the average packet of Nissin or Maruchan ramen has more than half of the recommended daily allowance of sodium, leading to heart disease and other preventable illness across the prison system. That's why Ron Freeman developed low-sodium ramen and is specifically aiming sales at prison commissaries.
posted by Etrigan (26 comments total)

this was great, thanks for posting it. . . I wonder how much less terrible incarceration would be in this country if more just-released folks got infusions of capital to go after the ideas they'd come up with inside.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 10:47 AM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

I would buy a low-sodium ramen preferentially, to be honest. The regular stuff is too salty.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 10:57 AM on June 29, 2018 [22 favorites]

Same, but I also really love that this is being targeted to help folks in prison eat healthier.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:05 AM on June 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

A number of those packets are consumed in correctional facilities. Ramen has become such a staple for the incarcerated that it has usurped tobacco as a de facto currency.

This was true even when I was locked up 20 years ago. I still remember waking up one morning after my cellie had been in an all-night card game and seeing the towering stack of "soups" he'd won when he hit a lucky streak.

I wish Freeman luck in getting into prison commissaries. One of the issues the inmate liaison committee had during my bid was getting some influence over what commodities go chosen for sale. We never did make much progress on that front.
posted by layceepee at 11:13 AM on June 29, 2018 [25 favorites]

Under the sentence’s terms, he would avoid prison as long as he stayed out of trouble. So when police found the crack in the hot-dog cart, Freeman was automatically sent to prison for three years.

Jeeze Louise.

he sprinkled the spices and a packet of vegetables — dehydrated onion slices, green bell pepper, and celery — over them ... The vegetables were the best part, their chewiness adding another dimension to the dish.

I bet there'd be a wide general market demand for something like this. I'd certainly give it a try.

seafood gumbo, chicken taco, chicken fajita, and lamb stew, which Freeman said he developed for Muslims

That's freaking awesome.
posted by porpoise at 11:16 AM on June 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

So weird how one in this late capitalist world how an entrepreneur in the very system I'm so angry about can become a hero, but he's certainly heroic to me.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:17 AM on June 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

In his Victorville kitchen, Freeman prepared a bowl of his ramen for me to try. After boiling the noodles, he sprinkled the spices and a packet of vegetables — dehydrated onion slices, green bell pepper, and celery — over them. The resulting dish was fully flavored without being overwhelmingly salty. The vegetables were the best part, their chewiness adding another dimension to the dish.

As a ramen lover who is on a low-sodium diet (and as a result I now REALLY notice the taste of salt in places where it was just in the background before) I would totally be down for this.

Freeman has received comments on his social media criticizing him for taking advantage of mass incarceration to make profits, but he argued that he sees his ramen as a solution and not part of the problem. Maruchan and Nissin should be to blame for manufacturing products that add to incarcerated people’s health problems, he said.

Less than a mile from the apartment complex where Freeman was arrested is a Nissin Foods factory, a mammoth concrete complex that spans an entire block. One day, Freeman wants to open his own factory in the area. He said he would prioritize hiring ex-felons, many of whom struggle to find jobs after being incarcerated.

Also - three years in prison for possession of a small amount of crack. Less incarceration would be an even better place to start, as would dismantling the prison-industrial complex.

But good for Freeman, I say. He's actually solving one problem in a whole tangle of them.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:23 AM on June 29, 2018 [11 favorites]

three years in prison for possession of a small amount of crack.

It hardly makes it any better but TFA said he served about half his sentence. Again, still way too fucking long, but better than 3 years.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:31 AM on June 29, 2018

Yeah, was referring to the sentence itself.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:32 AM on June 29, 2018

The correctional centre in my small Canadian city used to have a garden, fully worked by the inmates and supplying the kitchen. It was there for years before some local assholes found out and created an outcry about “why should convicts get to eat garden-fresh vegetables if I don’t get the same?” Instead of directing these folks to their local community garden, the jail garden was shut down. Can’t have inmates getting anything nice, can we?

Anyway, that’s going to be a problem this fellow comes up against, and I wish him all the strength in the world. And some allies.
posted by arcticwoman at 12:06 PM on June 29, 2018 [25 favorites]

So weird how one in this late capitalist world how an entrepreneur in the very system I'm so angry about can become a hero, but he's certainly heroic to me.

All of us have our choices constrained by the systems we live in, to one extent or another. It's possible to do good even within a sick system. Anything to make the world a better place.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 12:07 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

The bizarre thing is that if he'd been out of prison and worked hard for that same period of time he almost certainly would not have been able to get someone to give him a business grant for $3k and he probably would not have saved that much. (Not like as a personality flaw, just income vs. expenses.) And I doubt he could have gotten a loan at that point. Maybe a high-interest credit card? So like... covering for someone's crack being a more viable strategy for starting a business than most seems like it says so much about why we have so many people in prison and so many people who can't make ends meet.
posted by Sequence at 12:13 PM on June 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Along with honey buns, ramen noodles — typically the kind that comes in a plastic wrapper, made by the brands Maruchan or Nissin — are the most popular items at prison commissaries, filling the gap left by nutritionally inadequate and, at times, inedible correctional meals.

Yeah, the reason why it's a currency is because the prisons don't feed them enough food. Cracked article
posted by Melismata at 12:14 PM on June 29, 2018

Yeah, I know I'm writing from Narnia or something, but prisoners should be craving junk food, because prison food should be wholesome, healthy and sustainable. And obviously filling. I can't think of a single reason why the food in prisons shouldn't be good.
posted by mumimor at 12:37 PM on June 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

I hope it's not too soon in the discussion to go on a tangent. I'm curious about the photos. They seem to be scans of prints, and the scanning is of about the quality I'd do on my scanner/printer at home. Why the dust on a professional website?
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:49 PM on June 29, 2018

The prison ramen economy is incredible. Apparently there is a flavor (I believe it's Texas Beef) which is exclusively sold to prison commissaries.
posted by Copronymus at 12:52 PM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I can't think of a single reason why the food in prisons shouldn't be good.

In states like Alabama, where the corrections department spends just 50 cents per meal

According to Entrekin, the law stipulates that as long as inmates receive food, sheriffs can keep excess money in the food fund.

posted by Etrigan at 1:01 PM on June 29, 2018 [12 favorites]

Good tasting low sodium instant ramen is a great invention. Whenever I have ramen at my in-laws' place my father-in-law warns me not to drink all of the soup because of the sodium. He drinks and smokes with abandon so if he warns me that something is unhealthy I'll heed his warning, at least for as long as I'm visiting.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:56 PM on June 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

I hope it’s not a derail to say that sodium doesn’t lead to heart disease. It does tend to increase blood pressure somewhat, but not to a concerning extent unless one has existing hypertension. Many people who have existing heart conditions should reduce sodium intake, but the idea that sodium is inherently unhealthy is a widely held misconception. Probably the fact that many unhealthy foods are also high in sodium doesn’t help.
posted by Cogito at 6:54 PM on June 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

sodium

High BP possibly exacerbates conditions that lead to heart disease.

Conditions including stress - from being incarcerated, and incarcerated in the US prison system (compared to other prison systems).

Sodium is actually kind of a red herring - there's some evidence that it's the chloride that's important - but its unclear whether its causative or prognostic.

(But salt - NaCl is equimolar Sodium and chloride.. which makes KCl branded as "healthier" salt than NaCl kind of dubiou.)

Prognosis of heart disease is much more reliable via HDL/LDL ratio, which is impacted by genetics, diet, and exercise.

I'm guessing that "prison loaf" doesn't have a healthful omega-3/ 6 ratio.
posted by porpoise at 7:11 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

In my experience, ‘soups’ are a de facto currency peg. A Snickers may be worth six soups. You may be required to contributed x number of soups into the communal soup pool for the gang you had to join for protection.
posted by battleshipkropotkin at 12:57 AM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

What a hero. We need more people like him.
posted by daybeforetheday at 2:49 AM on June 30, 2018

I suppose a world in which prisoners can buy nicer ramen from for-profit commissaries is technically better, but this is basically the dictionary illustration for false consciousness.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:12 AM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

The sodium is in the flavor packet, right? Not so much in the actual noodles (which I understand are already fried so not exactly healthy on their own).
posted by TWinbrook8 at 5:37 AM on June 30, 2018

I suppose a world in which prisoners can buy nicer ramen from for-profit commissaries is technically better, but this is basically the dictionary illustration for false consciousness.

I don't think most US prison commissaries are for-profit. Vendors profit from selling items to commissaries, but sales to prisoners are typically at or below cost. (Which doesn't mean inmates can necessarily afford them given the zero or low wages they are able to earn.)
posted by layceepee at 5:53 AM on July 2, 2018

For anyone who's curious, here's the commissary list for the federal prison in Atwater, CA.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:54 AM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]