Athletes in Beijing Olympic village can take their meals without a worry-the city has set up a monitoring center for food safety.

"No food accidents have happened in the Olympic Village so far," said Zhang Zhikuan, director of the Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce. "Food safety is guaranteed during the Olympic Games."

Every day, rows of center members sit in front of their computers, monitoring 90 domestic and overseas food safety websites. When a warning call is received, a vehicle carrying laboratory equipment rushes to the spot to test the suspect food. The equipment is sensitive to dozens of toxic and chemical substances.

If the food does not meet the required standards, it cannot be sold in the market. The city has stopped purchasing from a number of food suppliers, including some multinational companies, through safety concerns. Food providers must be increasingly meticulous about food hygiene as the monitoring system follows all processing stages. Statistics from the center show that no unqualified meat, poultry, egg or fish has yet been discovered in the market.

Zhang is confident of the food safety in the Olympic Village, though he is a little concerned about a possible outbreak of gastroenteritis in the sizzling weather. He suggests that all cooked food should be eaten within three hours.

The monitoring system will not be restricted to use for athletes during the Olympic Games, but will continue to operate afterwards. "It's a big challenge to monitor food quality for 18 million people," said Zhang. According to People's Daily, 80 percent of Beijing’s food is purchased outside the city. The capital plans to improve its logistic infrastructure and set up more monitoring systems in supermarkets and wholesale markets.

(China.org.cn by Wu Jin, August 17, 2008)