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A hot breakfast was the standard prison breakfast for many, many years for the same reasons that oatmeal is a popular breakfast food on the outside: it's healthy, filling and inexpensive. But porridge is off the menus in British prisons, replaced with a "breakfast pack" that costs only 27p per prisoner (about 46¢ US). The reason for the change, according to audit investigators, was "because cooked breakfasts are no longer part of contemporary eating habits in the wider community". Since the prison officials are so on top of food trends, they found it necessary to remove the offending breakfast cereal from their menus.

It is highly that the change was made to save money. While the breakfast pack - which includes 1 cup of breakfast cereal, two slices of bread, jam or marmalade, margarine, tea bags, instant coffee and a small milk cartoon - might cost slightly more per serving than oatmeal, it is given to the prisoners the night before and prepared and eaten by them in the morning. This eliminates the need to have the kitchen staff on hand for one meal every day.

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