What Is Served At The Olympic Village In Rio

In less than three months, thousands of athletes, trainers, PR people and other entourage members will descend upon Rio's Olympic Village—and they aren't likely to be making nightly dinner reservations at one of the city's better restaurants. Instead, many athletes at the Olympic Games will be eating in the Village's dining hall. In this case, a space that is the size of two football fields and is supplied by a kitchen half as large, the Associated Press reports.

The cooking team will deal with 460,000 pounds of raw food a day and use it to make 60,000 meals for six buffets: Brazilian, Asian, international, pizza and pasta (for all of that carbo-loading presumably), kosher and halal. Most of the food, including 40 varieties of fruit, will come from Brazil, but a few ingredients, like kimchi, are being shipped in, giving the athletes a taste of home.

Cooks have been taste-testing the food and will continue to in the coming weeks, but director Marcello Cordeiro says the larger concern beyond taste is food safety, particularly screening ingredients that could contain steroids like clenbuterol, which is fed to livestock in some countries.

Cordeiro explains, "People don't know how complex it is to put out safe food. We know that this is a very sensitive subject that could influence a result or an athlete's medal." Every supplier is being checked for certificates demanded by the country's food and drug agency.

Hopefully, after the competitions, the athletes will venture outside the cafeteria and try some of Brazil's exceptional sweets. Brigadeiro, anyone?