Mice to test food at Beijing Olympics

Beijing Olympics officials are going to extraordinary lengths to ensure the food on offer to athletes in 2008 is of the highest standard.

Milk, alcohol, salad, rice, oil, salt and seasonings will all be tested by white mice 24 hours before they are used in cooking or served to athletes, reveals a report in The Times.

Mice will develop an adverse reaction to any poisoning within 17 hours — more quickly than using such test methods as bacterial cultures, according to Zhao Xinsheng, an official at the Beijing Municipal Health Inspection Bureau.

Other measures being implemented include food storage areas being fitted with alarms, video cameras and fire controls, while kitchens will guarded around the clock. 

Vans delivering food for the Olympics will all be equipped with global positioning systems to ensure that they can find their way and that police can monitor their progress to fend off hijackers. 

Each package of vegetables to be eaten at the Games will be fitted with an electronic chip to record information such as the farm where the cabbage or the bean was grown and the date it was picked. 

Zhen Xiaozhen, a medic on the Beijing Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, said most of the dishes on offer to the athletes would be Western cuisine with a complementary smattering of Chinese dishes. 

These will include such traditional Beijing favourites as pea flour cakes or “donkey rolls” — sweet rolls of rice flour paste filled with crushed red beans and covered in soy bean powder. 

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By Daniel Thomas

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