Fasting – A Way to Eat More Than Everyone Else

Remember how I talked about the miniscule portions of food they serve us at the ADC? There is a temporary way around that: Convert to Islam and fast for Ramadan. You’ll end up with three times the food that everyone else gets, and the quality of food will be better, too.

Now, I don’t have access to a dictionary at the moment, but I thought fasting meant to NOT eat. So how can you fast and pig out at the same time? I’ll explain:

I have a Muslim cellmate, and he’s celebrating Ramadan. He fasts during the day and eats after sunset. He has a workaround for this, but I’ll get to that later. Non-Muslims get their normal three meals a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Muslims get all three meals served to them just before sunset.

In prison, religious groups are basically gangs. What I mean when I say “gang” is a group of like-minded people who look out for one another. Your group doesn’t have to sell drugs and stab people to be considered a gang.

In lower security institutions, most gangs don’t have a criminal agenda. Members simply help one another to make their sentences more pleasant. Since the Muslims are a minority group in prison, they tend to be tightly knit and will go the extra mile for each other. The Ramadan food trays are just one example.

The Ramadan trays are physically TWICE the size of the ones everyone else gets. Why the rest of us don’t get the same size trays will forever be a mystery. Muslims are in charge of preparing the Ramadan meals, and they will upgrade the quality of the food as well as the size of the portions. For example, if we had baked fish that day for dinner, the Muslims will FRY it for their brethren in the ADC. I’ll give you some meal comparisons:

NON-MUSLIM	MUSLIM
Breakfast	Breakfast (in a paper bag)
1 carton of milk	2 cartons of milk
2 servings of grits (I’m not eating anything that sounds like the stuff you wipe from your eyes when you wake up in the morning)	2 servings of dry cereal
1 yellow cake (tastes like plastic)	1 blueberry muffin
(I just drink the milk . . .)	1 date
	1 fresh apple
Lunch	Lunch
2 taco shells	4 taco shells
1 serving of ground beef	2 servings of ground beef
1 serving of corn	1 serving of corn
1 serving of rice	2 servings of rice
(Yes, tacos with no lettuce or salsa. People complained.)	1 serving of lettuce
	1 serving of salsa
Dinner	Dinner
1 serving of spaghetti	2 servings of spaghetti
2 slices of bread	2 slices of bread (buttered)
1 serving of spinach	1 serving of spinach

Things are already pretty well weighted in the Muslims’ favor. I can sort of live with this, but here is the disgusting part: people don’t pay attention to who is on the Ramadan list when they hand out normal meal trays for the day. Why bother since there are only a handful of Muslims here? This means that not only do the Muslims get their Ramadan trays, THEY GET THE REGULAR TRAYS AS WELL. I’m losing weight while my celly is eating like a prince.

To his credit, I will say that my celly followed the traditions of Ramadan and ate only at night. This is kind of meaningless, though, due to the workaround he devised for fasting all day. HE SLEEPS FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET.

That’s right, he adjusted his sleep schedule to avoid being hungry in the day. After all, we don’t have to work or anything. Sleeping in the day is a cinch. Although this is somewhat clever, he’s still a cheap b*****d for doing it.

Ramadan at the ADC is the most gluttonous fast that I have ever seen. It defies the basic point of fasting when you are eating more than everyone else. Still, I can’t blame my celly for taking advantage of the cops’ mistakes. I know that I would take the extra trays. So if you happen to be at the ADC during August, tell the chaplain that you are a Muslim. You may burn in hell for dishonesty, but at least you’ll go on a full belly.