Food at Olympic villages: McDonald's and more

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      As other Olympic host cities have discovered, plenty can go wrong when you’re providing half a million meals to athletes and Olympic-village workers over a 60-day period. In Torino four years ago, the athletes’ village ran out of bananas, a competition staple for many athletes. In Beijing, athletes waited up to half an hour for their morning coffee. Some teams had trouble finding out what was in the food.

      For the past three years, Vancouver-based sports nutritionist and registered dietitian Nanci Guest has been researching stories like these in her role as a nutrition consultant for Vanoc. She’s been advising French caterer Sodexo, which has a contract to provide a marketplace of made-to-order, fresh-food stations at the athletes’ villages in both Vancouver and Whistler; the food building in each village will also include a McDonald’s restaurant and a McCafé. (Food from both McDonald’s and Sodexo is free to athletes and Olympic workers.)

      “An athlete has trained their whole lives, and this could be their one chance,” Guest told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. “So we’re going to try to be the first Olympics that doesn’t have any complaints.”

      One thing that’s out of her control is McDonald’s presence. McDonald’s has been involved in the Olympics since 1968, and it has been a “worldwide partner” since 1996.

      Guest said she has “mixed feelings” about McDonald’s feeding elite athletes in the villages. She normally advocates a diet heavy in fruits and vegetables for athletes of all levels, and said a common Canadian dietary flaw is an excess of sodium, for which fast food is notorious.

      “Intuitively, we don’t think of those [McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, another worldwide sponsor] as being for a performance body. But when you’re training hard and you’re consuming 3[000], 4[000], 5,000 calories a day, if you have a Coke, it’s not going to break you. If you have an Egg McMuffin, it’s not going to break you.”¦It’s not something I would recommend on a daily basis.”

      Toronto author Helen Lenskyj thinks the image of fit athletes gobbling sesame-seed buns smacks of hypocrisy.

      “There’s the blatant contradiction,” Lenskyj told the Straight by phone from Toronto. She’s not surprised, however. The modern Olympics, she said, isn’t about sport or a healthy lifestyle. It’s about business.

      Indeed, no McDonald’s could mean no Games, according to Nejat Sarp, Vanoc’s vice president of villages. He explained to the Straight why the world’s elite Olympic and Paralympic athletes will be sipping cappuccinos from McCafés before going for gold.

      The Olympic movement needs the financial support and promotion. Plus, the athletes like the food.

      “Even if you were to watch [swimmer] Michael Phelps, when he won his eighth gold medal and the question was asked when he got out of the pool, ”˜What are you doing now?’ he said, ”˜I’m going to go have a Big Mac,’ ” Sarp said in a telephone interview.

      “We have to understand the fact that there is a real need and a real demand from the athletes [for McDonald’s],” Sarp said, “and, most importantly, a company like McDonald’s, their dedication and commitment has allowed the Games to continue to go on. Otherwise, in the global financial world we live in, this wouldn’t be possible.”

      For the Torino and Beijing games, the International Olympic Committee’s 12 global partners, of which McDonald’s was one, contributed US$866 million, according to the 2009 Olympic Marketing Fact File.

      McDonald’s is planning to serve items from its regular Canadian menu at the Olympic villages, including cheeseburgers, fries, McNuggets, and entrée salads, according to McDonald’s senior manager of global communications, Suzanne Valliere. The only nod to the other countries participating in the Games, she said, is a special Sichuan sauce for McNuggets.

      Given North America’s obesity and heart-disease epidemics, is the McMenu really something elite athletes should be eating—and plugging?

      “I think it would be good for people to look at the bigger picture in terms of the choice and variety we offer on the menu,” Valliere told the Straight in a phone interview from Oak Brook, Illinois, pointing out the entrée salad options.

      The Mediterranean salad with chicken and balsamic dressing contains 64 percent of the recommended daily intake of sodium and 37 percent of the recommended daily intake of fat, according to the calculator on McDonald’s Canada’s Web site.

      What else will the athletes be eating? All other food will be prepared by Sodexo, best known in B.C. for providing hospital food. Vanoc’s Sarp said that local caterers didn’t come forward to bid for the contract when they found out how many people would be served in the village each day. Ditto Vancouver’s culinary schools, which Vanoc had been hoping to include.

      Local produce, Sarp noted, is limited in February and March, so it won’t be a major feature in the athletes’ villages. Neither will Sodexo be charged with accommodating the tastes of each international team, though a variety of rices will be served at each meal.

      According to Vanoc, one highlight of Sodexo’s offerings will be the First Nations booth. The menu there includes whole-wheat bannock, venison chili, bison meat loaf, and grilled Pacific salmon. Sodexo will also serve Albertan steaks and roasts, B.C. turkey sausage, and, of course, real maple syrup.

      Comments

      12 Comments

      miguel

      Jan 7, 2010 at 6:32am

      I guess it's McDonalds that says yea or nay to the olympics, not us.
      Miguel

      Patrick M

      Jan 7, 2010 at 8:17am

      sounds good - I wish i could go to the Olympics just to eat the food!!

      Bobby G

      Jan 7, 2010 at 11:57am

      Its sad to see what modern day elite sporting events have been reduced to, to survive. I hate to see events like this held to ransom by huge Corporate sponsors. Disgusting.

      Tony Balogne

      Jan 7, 2010 at 9:51pm

      Since MacDonald's is a sponsor, I guess its not surprising at all that VANOC's vice president of villages Nejat Sarp would not only cite a MacDonald's commercial in order to offer and explanation of why MacDonald's is good but also reproduce the most banal ideological statement of proponents of market society, which is, that the trash they intentionally push on the public is simply to meet "the real needs and real demands" of not only Olympic athlete's but of Vancouverites as well. As if we have and innate need for crap.

      Poopface

      Jan 8, 2010 at 6:20am

      Everything about the Olympics is bad. Now it's McRatland. Gotta love a couple of big macs before competing....honestly !!!! The "Green" Olympics (not!)

      5CENTLUCY

      Jan 8, 2010 at 8:28am

      thanks for letting us know who makes this offensive, oppressive, expensive, idiotic display possible. Thank you MIckey Dee's! hahahahaha

      Early Bird

      Jan 8, 2010 at 7:03pm

      I was hoping too my old friend Mayor McCheese.

      glen p robbins

      Jan 10, 2010 at 8:02pm

      I found it interesting that following the difficulties between old friends -- the BC Restaurant Association--and Gordon Campbell and BC Liberals over the HST--and a poll by the former group---that the Vancouver Sun published a report on the apparent health problems (calories--sodium) attached to many fast food and well known 'higher end' restaurants including The Keg and Milestones. After reviewing the information published--McDonald's seemed only equally as 'bad'---good for them. Maybe Campbell's hedgeing his bets with the new Health Sales Tax (HST II)?

      cindy

      Jan 10, 2010 at 8:59pm

      What will they be providing for all the volunteers at the venues, who have no choice but to eat whatever they're given, day after day, since they can't bring their own food in? At other sports events it's gotten pretty monotonous, and there was usually no food or even coffee available until mid morning. Not nice, when you've gotten up at 4 or 4:30 a.m. to get to an early shift.... Who wants to eat a real meal in the middle of the night?

      davey g

      Jan 13, 2010 at 1:01pm

      yea ! ratburgers !
      i can feel my somache rumling before & after ! @#!$%*!?