Feeding Olympian Appetites
Today’s Dietitan
By Matthew Robb and Nancy C. Robb, RD, LD
Vol. 7, No. 1, p. 42

If it takes a village to raise a child, what does it take to feed a village?

In the case of the Olympic village at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, Greece, it started with a kitchen the size of a football field. Inside, an army of 800 chefs and cooks rocked around the clock for 16 days to crank out nearly 2 million dishes for the world’s most elite athletes at the most-watched sporting competition in history.

The stakes were high. For each of the 6,500 competing athletes, the path to Athens entailed a punishing training regimen and not a little sacrifice. With performances hinging on optimized nutrition—and distances separating winners from also-rans measured in mere fractions—Aramark itself had to turn in a medal-winning performance. By all accounts, it did.

Not that Aramark is a stranger to big feeds. Athens was actually its 13th Olympiad since the 1968 Games in Mexico City. Since then, the Philadelphia-based giant has become an institution at stadiums, conventions, conference centers, and corporate and college dining rooms, among other venues. The 2004 Olympic deal—worth a reported $41.8 million—simply cemented its status as the world’s largest contractor.

Making things run smoothly took more than two years of painstaking planning and execution, officials say. Long before the lighting of the Olympic flame, an international team of chefs huddled in Philadelphia and began a rigorous process of taste testing recipes. Six months later, they emerged with 1,200 hot items—and then meticulously morphed small-batch samples into monster servings sized for crowds that swelled to 25,000.

All told, the medaled masses in Athens devoured 640,000 bananas, 500,000 pounds of meat and seafood, 177,000 pounds of potatoes, 76,000 pounds of salad greens, 20,000 pounds of rice, 19,500 pounds of olives, and nearly 2 tons of prime Mediterranean garlic.

Because not everyone subscribes to the Olympic ideal, security measures were tight. Notably, every scrap of food—gathered from fields across Greece, the greater European Union, and beyond—was funneled into a central warehouse, where security technicians scanned for foreign objects using x-ray machines.

Helping fuel the Olympians’ quest for gold were Aramark dietitians Jillian Wanik, MS, RD, and Stephanie Chmielecki, RD, LD, both members of the American Dietetic Association’s sports and cardiovascular group.

Wanik, reflecting on her experience, says it was Olympian in every way. “The Athens Games were truly the experience of a lifetime,” she says from her office in Hartford, Conn. “For 17 days, Athens was the center of the world—where 205 countries and their best athletes, coaches, and trainers lived, ate, competed, and celebrated in one place. People were happy just to be there, medals or not.”

While Aramark officials reminded Wanik to think big, nothing quite prepared her for what she encountered. “When I first entered the Olympic dining hall,” she says, “the immediate impression was almost overwhelming—it was absolutely huge. The serving/seating area was the size of three football fields and had 6,500 seats in endless row after row. Flags and ribbons were hanging everywhere. A state-of-the-art stereo system was belting out music from around the world as athletes—clad in a multihued sea of uniforms—were laughing, joking, even dancing conga lines. The atmosphere was electric and infectious.”

Chmielecki, clinical and patient services manager for the northeast region of Aramark Healthcare Management Services, agrees on the festive atmosphere. But behind the grins and high fives, she says, it was all business—for athletes and Aramark alike. Faced with high-stakes food delivery on an almost unimaginable scale, Aramark relied on its vast knowledge base—and practice, practice, practice.

“Having already done 12 Olympics,” she says, “our chef managers and operations managers had a wealth of experience. Our computer system provided not only nutritional analysis but also gave periodic automatic replenishment levels, recipes, and production and ordering sheets.”

But feeding more than 200 nationalities meant more than just satisfying a chorus of growling tummies. Knowing that years of hard training were timed to peak in Athens, “one thing we definitely didn’t want to do was change an athlete’s diet just before his or her event,” she says.

Aramark’s solution: “a menu of international favorites, with enough hometown foods to keep everybody happy,” says Wanik.

Under the big tent, athletes found four colossal food stations. The biggest—the International Station—featured no fewer than 260 hot wells of favorite eats from Central and South America, Italy, Spain, and northern Africa. The Asian Station beckoned with oodles of Chinese, Indian, Thai, Indonesian, and Japanese foods. Among the favorites: a rotating assortment of congees and four tons of pungent Kim-chi air freighted in from Korea. The Greek Station offered the finest of 4,000 years of Hellenic gastronomy, including moussaka, spanakopita, pastitchio, and baklava. The always-popular Pizza-Pasta Station met the needs of the carb-hungry, while kiosks hosted by McDonald’s and Coca-Cola rounded out the offerings.

Among the lessons that emerged from the Atlanta and Sydney Olympics: don’t skimp on the spice. Athletes clamored for fish sauces, curry pastes, and assorted miso that radiated heat like an Athenian summer.

Just to prepare the target 6,000 meals per hour, Aramark needed a steady supply of the following ingredients:

• 1 million gallons of bottled water;

• 7,500 gallons of milk;

• 30,000 eggs;

• 300 tons of fruits and vegetables;

• 200 tons of meat and seafood; and

• 25,000 loaves of bread.

These colossal amounts may conjure images of supreme gluttony, but Wanik and Chmielecki say they saw anything but.

“About 60% of their plates was fruit or vegetable,” Wanik says. “Pasta typically accounted for another 25%, although that number sometimes hit 50%, depending on the athletic event. World-class athletes are keenly aware that both protein and carbohydrates have an important place in the diet.”

Chmielecki agrees. “I don’t think we heard the words ‘Atkins’ or ‘Zone’ or ‘Sugar Busters’ once,” she says. “These elite athletes choose their foods as fuel, not exclusively for taste. They need the carbohydrates, protein, sodium, and hydration to compete at their level.”

To muscle their way through competitive heats, the athletes needed lots of fuel. To say portion sizes exceeded Recommended Dietary Allowance is a portrait in understatement.

“Some athletes ate massive piles of food—5,000 calories a day would be the norm,” Wanik says. “We’re talking several plates of food at each meal, with four slices of bread, no problem—plus dessert. What surprised me was that they can eat immense volumes of food and still maintain the physique of a world-class athlete.” Aramark officials estimated that many athletes doubled or tripled their portions, consuming 2 to 3 pounds of food per meal—and three to five meals per day.”

But Wanik puts things in perspective. “While some of the athletes ate huge quantities, they selected their foods very carefully. They wanted to optimize the nutrient content. There were no wasted calories. They made every single gram count.”

Adds Chmielecki, “In front of every dish there was always a nutrition card listing caloric value. Protein, carbohydrate, fat, and sodium were on every item, printed in Greek, French, and English.

“Typically,” she continues, “an Olympic gymnast will focus on proteins and carbohydrate while limiting fat intake. Triathletes and marathoners, meanwhile, are carboloading a week in advance, but including plenty of protein. As for the super heavyweight power lifter, the focus is protein, protein, protein.”

“We saw Michael Phelps over there,” Wanik notes. “He was obviously the epitome of the super-athlete: very tall, V-shaped physique, broad shoulders, slim waist, short hair.” Chuckling, the 5-foot, 3-inch Chmielecki adds, “We also saw [7-foot, 5-inch] basketball center Yao Ming. While seated, his knees rose above the top of the dining room tables. Sitting, he was almost taller than I am standing.”

Big events bring big challenges, Aramark’s dietitians say. “Clinically speaking,” Chmielecki notes, “the biggest challenge was doing the nutritional analysis for 1,200 recipe items. We had to become familiar with foods such as congee, briam, and miso. As the menu changed, we had to do new nutritional analyses quickly and get that information to the coaches, trainers, and dietitians.”

Among the surprises, Chmielecki says, was the apparent dearth of dietitians among the national teams. “That was especially surprising with the larger developed countries,” she says. “They had large teams with trainers and coaches, yet they did not have their own dietitians. I would have anticipated seeing more.”

Wanik says she and Chmielecki kept a close eye on hyponatremia. “It was so hot and humid in Athens—up over 100°F on many days,” Wanik says. “We certainly kept an eye out. Some athletes were weighing both preworkout and postworkout to assist in replenishing appropriately. The athletes were very aware of that issue.

“It’s amazing being part of 200 cultures,” she continues. “What’s also amazing is that despite conflicts around the world, the athletes sat next to each other in friendship. It’s amazing how they all come together. Competition is intense at the Olympics, but no one hates. It’s truly peaceful—a gathering that represents the best of humanity.”
And that is food for thought.

— Matthew Robb is a freelance writer residing in suburban Washington, D.C.

— Nancy C. Robb, RD, LD, is based in suburban Washington, D.C.

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