Meals in Orange County Jail, Santa Ana

The Orange County Jail serves three meals per day - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast is served at 4:30 AM, lunch is served at 11 AM and dinner at 4:30 PM.

Yes, that is correct - there is a twelve hour break between dinner and breakfast. For this reason most former inmates will suggest that you have friends or family members put money on your "books" - this is money that you have on account with the jail to pay for various things.

Last year, according to the Orange County Grand Jury report, just under 7,000,000 meals were served to saff and inmates at a cost of $.427 per meal!!!!  That's right, just under fifty cents per meal.

Even though you are getting three meals per week you will get hungry if you aren't ordering extra food. You should plan on spending at least twenty dollars per week to get enough food to keep from getting too hungry. Some inmates spend as much as $200 per week on commissary!

As you can imagine, commissary is a big money maker for the jail so they give you more frequent access to commissary than most jails. You can order commissary three times a week and it is delivered the following day.