VANCOUVER - When it comes to feeding athletes from 85 countries, Vancouver's multicultural cuisine has already won a gold medal by making the job easier for both Olympic organizers and those handling competitors.

Nejat Sarp, who will oversee every aspect of the food in the two athletes villages in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., said national Olympic committees have been surprised about the array of ethnic food that will be available to fuel the athletes' bodies and please their palates.

"Here in Vancouver we've got just about every culture represented,'' Sarp said, who works for the Vancouver Olympic organizing committee, known as VANOC.

He said the athletes villages will serve 10,000 meals a day to high performers who will be interacting with chefs to get made-to-order meals in the 24-hour-a-day dining rooms.

For example, rice will be prepared to specifications depending on the athletes' cultural expectations.

Sarp said the Japanese will want their rice steamed, the Chinese will go for fried rice, the Koreans will like it spicy and Middle Eastern athletes will prefer their grains even spicier, with olive oil, and of the basmati variety.

There will also be the brown rice crews, mostly from North America.

"When you're multicultural the tendency of teams to bring in their own culinary teams is a lot less,'' Sarp said. "In Beijing a lot of the teams opted to bring in their own culinary teams to make their athletes feel at home,'' he said of the 2008 Summer Games in China.

As for Canadian fare, First Nations-influenced salmon, whole-wheat bannock and bison meat loaf will be among the foods showcased for the world's athletes, Sarp said.

He said the dining rooms will feature crates of fruit and vegetables to give the place a look of freshness akin to Vancouver's famed Granville Island market.

Menus for the athletes villages have been two years in the planning, and started with VANOC officials looking at past Games' menus that were tweaked to include local food.

The resulting menus were then sent to the Lausanne, Switzerland-based International Olympic Committee for approval by its nutritionists before being passed on to nutritionists for various national Olympic committees, Sarp said.

When it came to the caramelized salmon that Sarp's group submitted as a suggestion to the IOC, "they came back with 'What is that?''' he said, but ultimately approved it.

Compared to the food offered to athletes at the 2006 Games in Turin, Vancouver will feature not only more cultural delights, but a variety that's not as big on carbohydrates, Sarp said.

"They were a lot more carbo-based than us because they're Italian.''

Athletes are not permitted to bring their own food into the dining rooms for safety reasons, Sarp said.

Several members of the U.S. Olympic team became ill because of a food-borne illness in China just days before they were to compete in the 2008 Games. The Americans had shipped meat for the athletes to Beijing, but bought many items locally.

Food stored at the athletes villages will be protected from spoilage by a remote temperature-monitoring system pioneered by NASA to keep astronauts' food safe in space.

Tim Osland, spokesman for Newmarket, Ont.-based company Thermor Ltd., which has advanced the technology with an automated and wireless monitor, said a main receiver and a series of wireless thermometers will be installed inside all fridges and freezers.

"We've created a better mousetrap so people know when foods are in the danger zone when it comes to the temperatures they should be stored at.''

Food temperatures in a commercial kitchen are typically checked once in the morning and once at night, but the wireless technology acts as a "kitchen nanny'' that works 24 hours a day, Osland said.

"The main receiver is right where the kitchen supervisor or the head chef is so they can be within earshot of the device so if something does go wrong they can hear the alarm and they can deal with the problem within minutes,'' Osland said.

Ross Rebagliati, who made history at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics by winning the first gold medal in snowboarding, said there was some ethnic food for athletes when he competed, but nothing like what Vancouver will be offering because of its multicultural makeup.

"What they did was make a point of trying to provide food from as many of the countries as were participating in the Olympics,'' he said of his experience in Japan.

He said some teams brought along their own chefs because of the limited ethnic cuisine, although that won't be necessary for the world's athletes in Vancouver.

Snowboarders relied on protein-packed beef jerky in Japan, especially because it travels easily, Rebagliati said.

Dana Lis, a dietician who has provided nutrition information to the freestyle ski team, said the athletes typically consume between 2,000 to 4,000 calories a day, depending on their gender and size.

Those who are vegan stick to lots of beans and lentils mixed with grains for protein and ensure almond and soy milk are fortified with calcium and vitamin D.

She said the dining rooms at the two athletes villages include six food stations providing continental cuisine, pizza and pasta, Asian meals, with several choices of rice and noodles, a huge deli and salad bar and halal food, which is cooked according to Islamic custom.

She said breakfast choices include sticky rice, especially for Japanese athletes, beef broth that provides sodium needed for hydration, and several First Nations dishes such as wild rice and whole-wheat bannock, a traditional fried bread.

Kosher meals will also be offered among the huge variety that will be available, Lis said.

"I think it's great,'' she said of the mix of cuisine that will be offered at the Games. "It helps all the athletes stick to their normal eating routine.

"I think it's super important to provide what athletes are used to eating. It's a huge part of their ritual. What they know fuels them, optimally, for probably the most important race of their life.''

Lis said the lunch menu includes choices such as grilled tilapia with mango and relish made of jicama, a Mexican turnip-shaped root vegetable.

Jennifer Gibson, a dietitian who is working with about 30 athletes from Canada's snowboarding and paralympic alpine ski teams, said she's continuing to develop strategies around what those vying for gold should eat at the athletes village in Whistler.

"Oftentimes when you're in a village you have too many choices,'' she said. "It's easy to overeat or undereat and not really know what the nutrient breakdowns of the food are so we're working on a day-by-day basis for the top three choices for lunch and dinner.''

She said athletes will stick to fish and lean meats such as turkey and chicken so the food can be quickly digested.

"So many athletes have a nervous stomach before they compete so we'll go with a smoothie that has milk, fruit and maybe a little bit of protein from one of our supplements,'' Gibson said.

One of the biggest challenges for snowboarders has been getting enough liquids to keep them hydrated during training, especially at higher altitudes where dryer air promotes sweat loss, Gibson said.

"Depending on where the athletes are training on the glaciers, access to the bathroom isn't that great. So sometimes athletes don't drink enough because they don't want to go to the bathroom in the snow because you would really have to hide somewhere and pee in the bush.''