VANCOUVER - Food served at the Vancouver and Whistler Athletes Villages during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games will be protected by a remote temperature monitoring system pioneered for use in outer space.
NASA first used a so-called "critical control points" monitoring system to ensure that food sent into space with astronauts would not spoil, because in space no one can hear you call for pizza.
Food for Olympic athletes will be protected by the same level of scrutiny.
Several members of the U.S. Olympic team were sickened by food-borne illness in China just days before they were due to compete in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The Americans had shipped meat for their athletes to China as a precaution, but purchased many items locally.
Service areas and refrigeration units in the Whistler Athlete's Village have been outfitted with a set of remote sensors that feed data with a radio signal to a central receiver every 15 minutes. Data is sent securely to a computer spreadsheet that can be parsed at a glance to reveal health standards violations, faulty equipment or bad food handling practices.
