Vita Pro

Around 1995, during the same time cigarettes were banned in Texas prisons for health related reasons, also came the introduction of a suppliment and meat filler by the name of VitaPro. The Canadian based company who produced VitaPro suggested a 25%-75% filler to meat ratio, but in no time Texas was soon serving the delicacy in 90%-100% filler ratios. This of course is the same Texas Department of Corrections that has always prided themselves on raising tens of thousands heads of sheep, cattle and pig livestock.

Some inmates and staff became curious and decided to inquire about how the state could justify auctioning off their livestock at discount rates to instead purchase an expensive meat filler. Their "inquiries" were met with only a subtle reply of cricket orchestras serenading them from the surrounding fields.

It wasn't long after the introduction of VitaPro that inmates started to complain of major stomach pains and uncontrollable flatulence. "God damn! The whole unit done turned itself into a gas chamber on death row after all of them meals" explained an inmate who was incarcerated at the time. Never to see daylight again, all further inmates complaints were tossed in TDC's extensive skeleton closet. That is until the more valued TDC livestock began mysteriously dying off.

After an initial investigation, it had been determined that the prison kitchen slop being fed daily to the pigs was actually the murderous culprit. Upon further investigation, it became even more clear that VitaPro was killing the pigs by blowing up their intestines. The pigs, who up until this point in human history, had been known as an animal capable of devouring any and all types of food had to be safely taken off the VitaPro mixture. It never became questionable why the inmates still remained eating it multiple times a week.

The inmates skin began to boil, literally. And eventually after the compounding pressures of the inmate's increasingly serious health conditions and growing interest from outside advocacy groups, the state's courts finally led an inquiry in the prisons use of VitaPro. They came to find out that not only had most of the prison units overserved massive amounts of VitaPro, but that also one of the Canadian company's paid consultants was none other than the current TDC director, Andy Collins. So the state owned inmates and livestock were not the only things blowing up, with a $1,000 a day corporate consultants fee. Director Collins bank account also was on the verge of exploding.

VitaPro eventually stopped being served in prisons state-wide, yet its legacy still remains as large as the gigantic TDC owned warehouses that have remained stocked to the brim with buckets upon buckets of VitaPro. With a shelf life that gives Twinkies a run for their money, the pig exploding VitaPro may one day sneek its way back into the perpetually nutrient dwindling meals of Texas corrections, some inmates believe it already has.

Written from Nueces County Jail

(Transcribed by Charity)