China assures food safety for athletes at 2008 Beijing Olympics

BEIJING (AP) -- Despite food safety problems, China says athletes, coaches and officials at the 2008 Beijing Olympics can be assured of healthy meals.

"All the procedures involving Olympic food, including production, processing, packaging, storing and transporting will be closely monitored," Sun Wenxu, an official with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, said Tuesday.

China has come under international pressure to boost food safety and monitoring mechanisms following repeated scandals over contaminated Chinese food exports.

That has underscored chronic problems with adulterated ingredients and fake products in the domestic food supply, raising questions of how well China can guarantee the purity of food for the games.