Beijing Belly

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`Beijing Belly' Has Olympians Packing Their Own Pickles, Miso
By Wing-Gar Cheng and Mason Levinson



Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Triathlete Sarah Groff says she was ``80 percent careful'' about what she ate and drank when she went to Beijing last September to compete for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. That wasn't enough.

Groff, 26, was hospitalized with vomiting and diarrhea after she contracted food poisoning. She needed antibiotics and almost three bags of intravenous fluids to fight ``Beijing belly.''

``It was most likely due to food or water,'' Groff, who finished 55th, said in an e-mail. ``If I qualify for the games, I will eat nothing but food from the U.S. leading up to my race.''

Beijing organizers on Thursday assured athletes that the food they eat at the games will be safe and criticized the U.S. team for importing provisions. The U.S. Olympic Committee plans to run its own restaurant, stocked partly with food from home, at Beijing Normal University, where the team will train.

``It's regrettable that the U.S. team plans to bring in its own food,'' Kang Yi, food division chief for the organizing committee, said at a news conference in Beijing. ``We've done so much work to ensure the supply of safe food for the Olympics.''

The USOC isn't concerned about food safety in the Olympic Village, said spokesman Darryl Siebel.

The restaurant is designed for convenience, so athletes don't have to take a 30-minute bus ride to the village before they eat, Siebel said. It will also be used to feed 400 support workers who won't have access to the village. The U.S. had similar training tables at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin and the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, he said.

``The Beijing organizing committee has assured the IOC, which in turn has assured all of the national Olympic committees that the food supply will be safe and of suitable level for worldwide athletes,'' Siebel said.

Pickles and Miso

Kin Tetsuhiko, manager of long-distance runners for Japan's Association of Athletics Federations, is less confident.

``Every time we go to China we'll bring everything from Japan, including the chef,'' said Tetsuhiko, who plans to pack pickles and miso paste.

At least 300 million Chinese, about 23 percent of the population, contract food-borne diseases each year, according to a 2005 report by the World Health Organization, Asian Development Bank and Chinese government.

The illnesses are caused by tainted water used for drinking, irrigating fields and caring for farm animals. A Health Ministry survey released Feb. 18 showed that almost 26 percent of 6,948 rural water samples were contaminated with coliform bacteria from human intestines.

In addition, stomachs were turned by recent news reports of fish spiked with antibiotics and cancer-causing chemicals; chicken and duck eggs laced with a carcinogenic red dye; and frozen dumplings injected with a pesticide.

13 Million Meals

The disclosures stoked international pressure to improve food safety. China began a crackdown last summer that resulted in 1,480 arrests, the government said Jan. 16.

Olympic venues plan to serve about 13 million meals. Taps will dispense filtered water, and sponsors will provide bottled water, Tang Yunhua, a spokeswoman for the Beijing Municipal Office for Food Safety, said at the news conference.

China in December signed an agreement with the U.S. to use a bar-code system to track food from farm to table. It records who raised a fish, what it was fed, who transported it and whether it was processed safely, Tang said.

An Olympic food safety command center will monitor 345 ingredients and issue warnings about tainted items.

``The Chinese government will do everything necessary to ensure safe food for the games,'' said Pu Changcheng, deputy director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

Slaughtering Hogs

Groff isn't convinced. The triathlete brought a hot pot and food to Beijing and drank bottled water. She occasionally tried the local cuisine.

``Having been assured that the hotel food was clean, I did eat a few meals,'' she said. ``I ended up in a Chinese hospital.''

During the 2006 world junior track and field championships in Beijing almost half the German team got sick, most with stomach ailments, said Eike Emrich, vice president of the German Athletics Federation.

Since then, the city's biggest hog slaughterer, Beijing Pengcheng Food Subsidiary, has joined the hygienic vanguard. Pig carcasses are washed and shaved before being hung on an automated butchering line, general manager Yang Wenke said.

Dust Buster

Slicing knives are dipped in sterilizing solution after each cut to avoid contamination. Previously, carcasses were left on the floor and knives weren't always washed, Yang said.

Workers at Beijing Huadu Broiler Co., the city's biggest chicken processor, start each shift by slopping through disinfectant in rubber boots and overalls or getting blasted by dust-busting hot air.

``Quality standards used to be very low,'' plant manager She Feng said. ``Now we control the environment.''

Still, the USOC plans to use both imported and local food at its ``high-performance center'' at Beijing Normal, Siebel said.

``I absolutely think that athletes should be completely fastidious about their consumption in Beijing,'' Groff said. ``There may be a number of athletes who experience similar problems to mine.''