District Attorney Mike Hestrin outlined some of the grotesque allegations against the parents at a news conference.
He said the children, who range in age from two years old to 29, were given one meal a day but the Turpin parents would buy food, like pumpkin pies, and place it where the children could see it but not eat it.
The couple dished out frequent beatings including strangulation at their home in Perris, California.
They punished their children by tying them up – first using ropes and later chaining them to their beds with padlocks.
Punishments would last weeks or months and intensified over time.
The children were not released from their chains to go to the toilet.
They only let the children shower once a year and would punish them if they washed their hands above their wrists or for “playing with water”.
The children were forced to stay awake all night until going to sleep at four or five in the morning and slept during the day.
Toys were banned although many were found unopened inside the house.
The Turpin children have never seen a dentist and had not visited a doctor for more than four years.
They lacked any basic knowledge of life and seemed not to know what a police officer was when they were rescued.
All 13 children have been treated in hospital since being freed from their bizarre ordeal on Monday.
The two-year-old was of normal weight but the other children were severely malnourished.
The 12-year-old weighed as much as an average seven-year-old and the 29-year-old weighed only 5st 8lb.
Mr Hestrin said several of the children had cognitive impairment and “neuropathy” – nerve damage as a result of extreme and prolonged physical abuse.
The 13 children were found in an emaciated state in their filthy, foul-smelling house, police revealed earlier.
Officers had at first thought all the children were minors but later realised some were frail and malnourished adults, they said.
Mr Hestrin said that when officers arrived, three of the couple’s children were chained to their beds.
David Turpin, 56, and Louise Turpin, 49, pleaded not guilty to charges of torture, abuse and false imprisonment when they appeared in court.