MELBOURNE, Australia, Nov 18, (AP): A prisoner is challenging an Australian state’s ban on inmates eating Vegemite, claiming in a court suit that withholding the polarizing yeast-based spread that most of the nation reveres as an unfairly maligned culinary icon breaches his human right to "enjoy his culture as an Australian.”

Andre McKechnie, 54, serving a life sentence for murder, took his battle to the Supreme Court of Victoria, according to documents released to The Associated Press on Tuesday. While more than 80% of Australian households are estimated to have a jar of Vegemite in their pantries, inmates in all 12 prisons in Victoria are going without.

McKechnie is suing Victoria’s Department of Justice and Community Safety and the agency that manages the prisons, Corrections Victoria. The case is scheduled for trial next year. Vegemite has been banned from Victorian prisons since 2006, with Corrections Victoria saying it "interferes with narcotic detection dogs.”

Inmates used to smear packages of illicit drugs with Vegemite in the hope that the odor would distract the dogs from the contraband. Vegemite also contains yeast, which is banned from Victorian prisons because of its "potential to be used in the production of alcohol,” the contraband list says. McKechnie is seeking a court declaration that the defendants denied him his right under the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act to "enjoy his culture as an Australian.”

The Act guarantees "All persons with a particular cultural, religious, racial or linguistic background" the right to "enjoy their culture, to declare and practice their religion and to use their language.” He also wants a declaration that the defendants breached the Corrections Act by "failing to provide food adequate to maintain” McKechnie’s "well-being.”

He wants the court to order the decision to ban Vegemite to be "remade in accordance with the law.” Manufactured in Australia since 1923 as an alternative to Britain’s Marmite, Vegemite was long marketed as a source of vitamin B for growing children. The spread is beloved by a majority of Australians, but typically considered an acquired taste at best by those who weren’t raised on it.