Nik Rajkovic / news@whmi.com

There's been a bit of a food fight going on at the Livingston County Jail after the sheriff says a vendor switched up a few items some prisoners deemed unfit for consumption.

WHMI News received a handful of correspondence suggesting a large 'hunger strike' was underway, but Sheriff Mike Murphy downplayed the scope of it, saying a dispute over food items happens every once in a while, and out of the roughly 300 inmates currently housed at the jail, only a handful were encouraging others to join their resistance.

He did not give specifics on which food items were swapped out by the vendor.

"Being in jail, you don't have much control over anything and food is a huge thing in a correctional facility. So, when there's a little bit of a monkey wrench thrown into that, the menu changed or the quality isn't there, they (inmates) get a little bit upset."

Sheriff Murphy says that only adds to the ongoing friction between guards and inmates, but he insists everything will work itself out.

"The last thing you want to do is make things way too comfortable for individuals in jail, because it is a jail. You chose to do whatever crime it is you chose to do," he said. "On the other side of the coin, however, if you just throw somebody into a cell and throw some bread and water at them occasionally, you will have riots."

Some of it, Murphy says, is local jails have become a dumping ground for those suffering mental illness.

"You see people at their worst because they've been locked up, and then you add on the mental health issues going on in our society today. These men and women (guards) see things and have to deal with things the average John Doe who works the assembly line, or whatever, truly couldn't grasp or understand until you actually see it."