Prisoners have been stripped of their daily sugar ration in an effort to curb obesity and improve behaviour.
Until 2010, prisoners in England and Wales were entitled to a sugar ration of 4 grams per day - usually handed out as four 1 gram sachets in breakfast.
While it has not been a prison service requirement since 2010, most have continued to serve the sugar ration.
But now jails are being encouraged to end the tradition amid health and behavioural concerns.
Some jails have obesity levels roughly aligned to the public's - which rose up to 30 per cent in 2024.
But others have reported up to 55 per cent of inmates are obese due to lack of activity and exercise.
At HMP High Down, near Sutton in Surrey, inmates have now been given artificial sweetener.
Prisoner Shaun D - incarcerated in HMP Stocken - wrote to prison newspaper Inside Time's complaining that inmates were no longer being served sugar.
HMP High Down - visited by the Princess of Wales in 2023 - now serves artificial sweetener rather than sugar
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And in HMP Full Sutton in Yorkshire, the amount of sugar was reduced three years ago from 1kg per month to 1kg every three months.
This is the equivalent of going from nine sachets per day to three.
A Prison Service source told Inside Times: "Decisions on sugar are taken at a local level, but there is no requirement to provide it routinely and prisons are encouraged to reduce or remove it in line with healthier standards"
The policy change had been revealed by the prison's watchdog, which accepted that overcrowding meant many prisoners were not getting enough exercise and activity to ensure they remained fit.
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An inmate within HMP Stocken said the prison was no longer serving sugar
|The prison independent monitoring board said: "Healthy living groups, which were planned to address such things as diet, weight gain and exercise, could not become established as planned during the year."
It added: "In an attempt to encourage a healthier lifestyle, prisoners’ monthly 1kg allowance of sugar was reduced to quarterly."
The small sugar sachets cost around 1p each wholesale, so stopping the service could help prisons save up to £3.20 per prisoner per day.
Prisons could also save money by deporting foreign criminals - which costs the taxpayer £630million per year, GB News has previously revealed.
Reform UK's Prisons Advisor Vanessa Frake previously told GB News: "The cost to this country for foreign national prisoners is staggering. It's a very long, drawn-out process."
Taxpayers have also forked out up to £1.6million a year on emergency services to rescue severely obese people as firefighters are called in to help transport significantly overweight people into ambulances.
A typical prison breakfast pack also include four tea bags, a small carton of milk, a portion of breakfast cereal, and sachets of whitener powder.
The 2025 Food In Prisons Policy Framework, published by HM Prison and Probation Service, set out to "improving prisoner diet, so as to facilitate prisoners being more receptive to approaches addressing their behavioural challenges, thereby reducing reoffending".