Olympic teams at the summer games in Paris are ordering in emergency supplies of meat and eggs after event organizers promoted a vegan diet for the world’s elite athletes.
On Tuesday, The Australian reported “more than 700kg of eggs and a tonne of extra meat” was called in “to replace fake meat meals and non-dairy options.” The food orders were placed “as athletes rail against the Vegan Olympics.”
“Paris organisers demanded 60 [percent] of food at all Olympic venues be vegan to reduce carbon footprint of dairy, meat and cheese,” the Australian paper added. “Avocados were off the menu because of transportation emissions, but the Australian team brought their own for smashed avo breakfasts.”
Yahoo Sports reported last week that teams were left frustrated by shortages of eggs and grilled chicken “while athletes have also been served uncooked meat.”
“While there is a variety of cuisine available to accommodate the tastes of different countries — and an abundance of baguettes in France — vegan meals aren’t in line with what the athletes prefer to eat while competing,” Yahoo reported. “The [Olympic] Village provides approximately 40,000 meals a day with 3,300 seats available in the facility’s main restaurant. Some countries can’t get meals anywhere else but the Village.”
The “loudest food complaints,” according to the Washington Post, “came from Team Great Britain.”
“The food ‘is not adequate,’ the British Olympic Association’s chief executive, Andy Anson, told the Times newspaper on the eve of the Opening Ceremonies,” the Post reported. “‘There are not enough of certain foods: eggs, chicken, certain carbohydrates, and then there is the quality of the food, with raw meat being served to athletes,’ Anson said.”
“Athletes don’t want fake meat,” author and nutrition journalist Nina Teicholz wrote on X. “They know that complete proteins — crucial for sports performance — come from animal foods.”
Sodexo Live, the Paris-based company which also catered the 2012 summer Olympic games in London, told the Washington Post that while at least 60 percent of the options available to spectators at all Olympic venues are plant-based, the threshold is 30 percent within the Olympic Village.
“They need a lot of proteins,” Philipp Würz told the paper, who is responsible for meals at the Paris games. “You can’t just say okay, you go 60 or 100 percent vegetarian. It’s just not possible.”
The “Vegan Olympics” officially opened in Paris last week with an opening ceremony wherein leftist organizers parodied the Last Supper with drag queens.
