MIAMI — One too many bouts of flatulence and cramping has prompted a Florida inmate to sue the Department of Corrections, arguing that the prison’s soy-based turkey dogs and sloppy joes amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
Eric Harris, 34, who is serving a life sentence for sexual battery on a child, said the soy in his prison chow is threatening his health by endangering his thyroid and immune system. Florida prisons serve meals with 50 percent soy and 50 percent poultry three times a day, a mixture that costs half as much as using beef and pork, the Department of Corrections says. The cost per meal: $1.70 a day for each inmate. Florida prisons began serving soy-based meals in 2009.
As an inmate at the Lake Correctional Institution, near Orlando, Harris, a former paralegal, has few culinary choices. He can eat 100 grams of soy protein a day, use his own money to buy food at the commissary or eat a vegan diet, he said in the lawsuit, which was filed in state court in Tallahassee. The Corrections Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Excessive soy can be toxic to the thyroid gland,” said Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nonprofit group that advocates a diet of whole, largely unprocessed foods and food high in saturated fats.
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