Nutritious dishes designed for SEA Games athletes, officials and volunteers

More than 7,000 athletes and officials coming for next month’s SEA Games will be served a healthy, Singapore-flavoured menu.

A two-year effort by the Singapore Southeast Asian Games Organising Committee (SINGSOC) and Singapore Sports Institute (SSI), the standardized menu will be rolled out to all 20 hotels hosting the athletes.

Over 120 recipes were created, with nutrition, taste, and food safety as the key concerns.

“The food was designed to make sure that the athletes have adequate carbohydrate and protein with minimal unnecessary fats while being more than just palatable to eat,” said Dr Kirsty Fairbairn, Head of Sports Nutrition at SSI.

At the helm of the project is chef consultant Kenneth Francisco, who has worked with the Team Singapore contingent at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games and the 2012 London Olympics, as well as the 2011 Pan American Games hosted by Mexico.

Working closely with nutritionists from SSI, Francisco believes at least 70 per cent of the food that will be served can be eaten by everyone.

Citing his experience from the Youth Olympic Games as the inspiration behind the dishes designed for this year’s SEA Games, Francisco said his team considered all the requirements that the athletes need.

“For example, during the Pan American Games in Mexico, I noticed that they (the athletes) can have two kilos of spaghetti a day. Because some athletes are bigger in size so they consume a lot of carbohydrates but very little protein, like chicken or fish,” he noted.

Francisco added that all the meals prepared during the games have to be served within three hours, as per the National Environment Agency (NEA)’s requirement.

The meals will be served to at three meal times daily from 24 May to 18 June.