Kevin Moloney for The New York Times
Vegetables await lunch service in the kitchen of the U.S. Olympic Training Center.
“We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes. They all would have tested positive.”
NY Times
Feb 9, 2008
COLORADO SPRINGS — When a caterer working for the United States Olympic Committee went to a supermarket in China last year, he encountered a piece of chicken — half of a breast — that measured 14 inches. “Enough to feed a family of eight,” said Frank Puleo, a caterer from Staten Island who has traveled to China to handle food-related issues.
In preparing to take a delegation of more than 600 athletes to the Summer Games in Beijing this year, the U.S.O.C. faces food issues beyond steroid-laced chicken. In recent years, some foods in China have been found to be tainted with insecticides and illegal veterinary drugs, and the standards applied to meat there are lower than those in the United States, raising fears of food-borne illnesses.
In the past two years, the U.S.O.C. has tried to figure out how to avoid such dangers at the Olympics. It has made arrangements with sponsors like Kellogg’s and Tyson Foods, which will ship 25,000 pounds of lean protein to China about two months before the opening ceremony, but will hire local vendors and importers to secure other foods and cooking equipment at the Games.
The bulk of that food will be served at the U.S.O.C.’s training center at Beijing Normal University, about 20 minutes from the Olympic Green, where for the first time United States athletes will have access to their own facility providing three meals a day. The dishes served will be compliant with the U.S.O.C.’s overhauled diet plan, placing a greater emphasis on nutrition, which officials hope will boost athletes’ performance.
The diet plan is already in place for the athletes residing at each of the three United States training centers — here and in Chula Vista, Calif., and Lake Placid, N.Y. And the organization is urging all United States athletes to be aware of what they ingest. Under the World Anti-Doping Agency’s drug-testing code, athletes are responsible for whatever is in their bodies, regardless of the source.
Much of the dietary strategy falls to Jacque Hamilton, the executive chef of the U.S.O.C. She has consulted with dietitians and sous chefs over the past year and a half to modify more than 1,500 recipes and prepare to serve about 700 meals a day at the U.S.O.C.’s training center in Beijing. Many countries do not have the resources for a training center in Beijing, but those that do may choose to serve their own food as well.
Ms. Hamilton has lowered sodium, decreased fats and eliminated trans fats — even from rich dishes like macaroni and cheese and rice pudding — while preserving the flavor. Most recipes must pass a taste test at the Hamilton household before she lets the athletes sample them, and on a recent afternoon at the Olympic Training Center here, Ms. Hamilton unveiled moo shu pork wraps, mango rice balls and a seaweed and soba noodle salad, hoping to gain approval for inclusion on the Beijing menu.
In front of each dish sat a placard informing athletes of vital nutritional information like serving size, calorie content and grams of fats and carbohydrates.
In a way, Ms. Hamilton is a natural fit for this mission; she is a 54-year-old mother of two who says she has never fed her family white bread or canned meats or vegetables. She recently recounted how her son, Jeremy, 12 years old at the time, came home one day and asked why she had been abusing him for so long.
“I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ ” Ms. Hamilton said, laughing. “And he said, ‘Why did I have to have my first Twinkie at someone else’s house?’ ”
There were no signs of Twinkies in the dining hall at the training center, but that does not necessarily mean athletes would be banished if they ate one. Adam Korzun, a dietitian who will be traveling to Beijing to ensure that every meal follows the nutritional standards, said no foods were forbidden.
“It’s all a matter of how and when you work it into your diet,” he said.
Sometimes, the athletes do not have a choice. Mr. Korzun recounted several times when teams competing in foreign countries were presented with culinary challenges. The triathlon team encountered a dish called “Be Dental Alveoli Quick to Salad Bangkok Hot Paddle Fish,” during a meet in Thailand. And the men’s weight lifting team was served barbecued guinea pig before a competition in Peru.
Myles Porter, who is hoping to earn a spot on the judo team for the Paralympic Games, said he lost about 20 pounds during the Para Pan-American Games in Brazil because he ate mostly pasta.
“You can’t just eat that for two weeks and expect to be at your best,” Mr. Porter said.
To limit those occurrences, Tyson has provided all United States team members with duffel bags containing a hot pot, a power adaptor, recipes and replenishable pouches of chicken that they can take to international qualifying events over the next few months.
In preparation for the Olympics, Tyson will ship beef, chicken and pork to China. When the food arrives, customs agents will review the shipment — the U.S.O.C. has budgeted 10 days to complete this process — before it is delivered to U.S.O.C. representatives and taken to a holding site at Beijing Normal University. The food will remain there for about three weeks until athletes arrive.
“The security is so tight that there is pre-screening before it even gets to me,” said Terri Moreman, the U.S.O.C.’s associate director of food and nutrition services.
The protein from Tyson is one of the few food products that will be shipped from the United States. For more than a year, a delegation that includes Mr. Puleo and Ms. Moreman has traveled periodically to China to explore food-related issues. While there, they meet with potential vendors and importers, locate Western-style kitchen equipment and, in some cases, plan how to procure items that Americans may take for granted.
The U.S.O.C. will send measuring cups because, as Ms. Hamilton noted, the United States does not use the metric system. Kellogg’s has been asked to supply cereals like Frosted Flakes and Mini-Wheats, as well as Nutri-Grain bars, because those products are not readily available in China. Finding molasses, they learned, is next to impossible. Ice? Also a challenge.
“When I told them that we’ll need about 6,000 pounds a day, they think the translation’s wrong,” Mr. Puleo said. “Actually, we’ll need much more than that.”
The details must be completed during the group’s next visit to Beijing, scheduled for March, so Ms. Hamilton can begin planning the menu, but so far they expect to import most of the seafood from Japan and a lot of the fruit from Australia. Even without knowing exactly what she will have, Ms. Hamilton has identified some favorites that have made the cut, like meatloaf and the seaweed and soba noodle salad.
She anticipates arriving in Beijing in mid-July to become accustomed to her new kitchen and to meet the Chinese staff that will be assisting her. By then, many of the woks will have been removed, replaced by mobile ovens and griddles, and a weeklong soft opening will be staged at the end of the month to address any problems. Ms. Moreman said she would have a spreadsheet detailing every athlete’s arrival, the times and locations of competitions and when she could expect which team to eat.
Once athletes are finished competing, they are free — encouraged, even — to sample the local fare. That could mean munching on live sea horses or hard-boiled fertilized duck eggs — though steering clear of adulterated chicken breasts.
“I’ll be out there trying all that stuff, too,” Hamilton said. “I can’t wait.”
