In preparation for the London Olympic Games, Chinese sports authorities are implementing ultra-strict measures to make sure meat products consumed by the country's potential medal winners are free from government-banned feed additives. Those which accelerate fat burning and muscle growth and could lead to the failing of official drug tests are the largest concern.

Clean meat assured for athletes

"No athletes can go out for meals without permission. We have to be that strict due to the food safety issue," Xiao Haopeng, chief of the Chinese shooting team, told the Beijing News.

"Under special circumstances when athletes have to eat outside of training grounds, they are only allowed to eat vegetables and staple food, and must report exactly what they have eaten for each meal," he said.

According to Xiao, the General Administration of Sport has appointed special meat suppliers for all sport teams.

The administration has ordered players not to eat pork, beef and mutton outside their training camps, and all meat products delivered from appointed suppliers must be handed over to the doping control center for further testing before they go to the kitchen.

In the canteen of the training headquarters of the administration, located in Beijing, all meat, vegetables, cooking oils, dairy product and staple foods are specially procured, and their sources can be traced should any problems emerge, the Beijing News reported.

The national marathon team, which trains for the Olympics in Lijiang, Yunnan Province, has no special athlete canteen, and so acquires free-range, chemical-free chickens from local families and keeps them in a contracted restaurant as their meat reserve.

The newly adopted rules are aimed at preventing athletes from falling victim to clenbuterol, commonly known as lean meat powder, which can cause vomiting, dizziness and lethargy.

In one recent case, Sun Longjiang, a competitive speed skater, was temporarily suspended and his 2011 national speed skating gold medal was revoked, even though an investigation found that Sun accidentally ate pork contaminated with the notorious meat additive, and was not purposefully responsible.

Long-standing issue

The news about Olympic athletes' special treatment triggered a new wave of concern over China's food safety, as many are upset that without a private animal farm, Chinese people en masse will be forced to assimilate the lean meat powder.

"The fact that only top athletes have access to healthy meat products reflects how grave our food safety problem has become," said Li Youyou, a Beijing resident.

According to Fan Zhihong, a food safety expert at the China Agriculture University, the so-called lean meat powder is used in many countries, including the US.

However, Chinese authorities found it impossible to monitor the dose of the additives used at the country's numerous small farms, and subsequently banned its use in 2002.

However, its use never actually ended despite numerous crackdowns, as loopholes in the production and supervision chain allowed farmers to use the additive and produce larger animals, which in turn garnered them and meat processors larger profits, according to previous media reports.

The country's largest meat processor, Shuanghui Group, was found to have produced and sold pork tainted with clenbuterol in March 2011, with a total of 158 pigs from nine farms in Henan Province having been contaminated, according to the Henan-based Dahe Daily.

In February 2009, 70 people were hospitalized in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, with stomach pains and diarrhea after eating tainted pig organs sold at a local market.

"Highly improbable event"

Despite a public outcry, food safety experts and industry insiders said that the public concern, though understandable, is somehow redundant, and consumers should enjoy meat products without worry.

"The sport administration's measures are aimed at eliminating all highly improbable events that might lead to an athlete's failure to pass a drug test. It does not necessarily mean that all food products on the market are unsafe," Fan said.

"In the Shuanghui case, none of the others who consumed the pork were negatively affected, as the dose, though banned by the State, was at a manageable and non-harmful level," said Fan.

A feed manufacturer, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Global Times that big farms in northeastern China seldom feed the animals with the powder, while only a few small farm owners do so to increase profits.

"They learned a lesson from the Shuanghui Group incident last year," he said.

However, expert assurances do not seem to dissuade public anxiety.

"The lean meat powder, the gutter oil, the poisonous milk powder and so on. What is happening in our country? I really hope more can be done to protect Chinese consumers," a Web user commented.