FoodBozo.com

LONG BEACH, California (AFP) – Cabernet and chocolate are potent medicine for killing cancer, according to research presented Wednesday.

Red grapes and dark chocolate join blueberries, garlic, soy, and teas as ingredients that starve cancer while feeding bodies, Angiogenesis Foundation head William Li said at a prestigious TED Conference.

“We are rating foods based on their cancer-fighting qualities,” Li said. “What we eat is really our chemotherapy three times a day.”

The Massachusetts-based foundation is identifying foods containing chemicals that evidently choke-off blood supplies to tumors, starving them to death.

Li cited a Harvard Medical School study showing that men who ate cooked tomatoes several times weekly were 30 to 50 percent less likely to have prostate cancer.

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The food supplied for the athletes at the Olympic Village needs to cater for a diversity of sports, cultures, ages and special dietary needs. Here is some information about the Olympic Village food menu for Vancouver in 2010, the details taken from an article by USOC Sports Dietician Susie Parker-Simmons. See more about Olympic Village nutrition and links to information about the menus at other Olympic Games.

As for previous Olympic Games, the Vancouver Olympic Village menu has to cater for a wide range of sports, cultures, ages and special dietary needs. The dietitians preparing the menu for Vancouver are catering for the special needs of halal, gluten free, vegetarian (vegan), nut free and lactose free diets.

There will be some food selection available all day (24-hours), such as fruit, salads, yogurts, cereals, breads, sandwiches, beverages, and desserts. Specific menus will be available at the major meal times throughout the day. Breakfast is on between 4am and 10am, and includes cereals, egg dishes, breakfast meats, potato dishes, rice, assortment of breads and other hot items such as waffles. Lunch is from 10am to 4pm and dinner from 4pm 12am. Both the lunch and dinner meal will include soups, international entrees, an Asian section, grill/carvery, a Native Canadian section, pizza and pasta, halal and various vegetables and starches (rice, noodles, pasta). Late night eating will include soups, pizza, salads, omelets, pasta, salads and a Native Canadian section.

For those who have to eat away from the village, for example on days that they are competing, they are able to pre-order box lunches. All menu items will include nutritional labeling, with common food allergies also identified. The catering company for the Vancouver and Whistler Olympic Villages is Sodexo.

Also see:

• Olympic Village nutrition, includes links to info about the menu at other Olympic Games.
• Nutrition at the Olympics
• the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games
• about the Olympic Games

Food at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler will be provided by Sodexo and McDonald’s. There will be fresh food stations at various points in the Athletes’ Village and so called ”food nannies” will keep dishes at a constant, safe temperature in order to prevent food borne illness.

At the 2008 games in Beijing, the Americans had meat flown in from the U.S. in order to stop just that. However, somewhere between the U.S. and preparation in China, the food developed pathogens and made quite a few of the athletes very ill. Food borne illness is caused when food sits in the danger zone at an improper temperature.

The two main elements of food poisoning are moisture content and temperature. Therefore if one is cooking a food whose moisture content is high (think potatoes, pasta, rice.) and it is left to stand at room temperature or at a temperature that is not sufficiently high to kill bacteria, one will have a wretched and dangerous case of food borne illness on one’s hands.

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