Marathoners for China’s Olympic team set to compete this summer in London have gone to drastic measures to avoid banned steroids which could result in disqualification from the 2012 Summer Games.
They are raising their own chickens for food.
In addition to home raised poultry, they are eating yak meat from local herdsman in order to avoid eating restaurant and store bought meats which can contain the residue of banned chemicals such as clenbuterol, an anabolic steroid.
Clenbuterol is indeed a problem in the conventional meat industry where it is illegally used in animal feed to increase the leanness and protein content of meat. People who consume meat from animals fed this steroid can experience headaches, dizziness, heart palpitations and gastic irritation. Some people need to be hospitalized after exposure.
Clenbuterol has caused grief for top athletes before. Alberto Contador blamed a steak dinner for his positive test during the 2010 Tour de France. This case is currently under appeal.
Olympic gold medalist weightlifter Tong Wen cited her love affair with pork chops as the reason when she tested positive for the same agent and was banned from the sport for two years. Clenbuterol is frequently added to steroid laced pig feed in China.
An official for the Chinese marathon team said:
“Since we don’t have a canteen to provide safe food, we have to cook meals ourselves because it is risky to eat at a street restaurant.”
Clenbuterol is not just a problem with meat raised in China. Only last month, the United Kingdom Anti-Doping Association warned athletes to avoid liver which can increase the odds of an athlete testing positive via urine test for the steroid clenbuterol.
Of course, locally produced liver from grassfed animals poses no risk of clenbuterol contamination unlike conventional liver. It appears that elite athletes such as the Chinese marathon team have realized that raising their own food or obtaining it from local grassbased producers, in this case, highland herdsman, is the optimal choice as high quality meat and animal fats are absolutely criticial for athletic training.
In Ancient Greece, Olympians ate a mostly meat based diet, and it wasn’t lean meat either! Science has proven the wisdom of this traditional practice, as athletes that “carb load” prior to competition have significantly less endurance than athletes that “fat load” prior to athletic events (High Fat Diets Help Athletes Perform, Science News, 1996, 149:18:287).
With athletes starting to get the message about the importance of raising one’s own food or obtaining from a known, local producer, it is only a matter of time before the general population concerned with health begins to follow this pattern as well with locally produced and home grown meats going mainstream in the coming years.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Source: China’s Olympic Runners Raise Their Own Chickens Amid Food Fears
Just to clarify – while I can’t speak for certainty about other nations, no poultry products in the U.S. are or have ever been treated with steroids. It’s a common misconception, because poultry farmers have traditionally used certain antibiotics to prevent digestive disorders in their growing poultry flocks and have come to refer to them as “growth promoters”. This is often taken to mean steroids, and in fact many poultry producers advertise their meat as “steroid free!” to assuage consumer fears.
Bicycle rider Contadour claims the meat was the reason he tested positive on his drug test. The amount was so small that it could not have been deliberate doping..
When I first heard Contador make this claim, I thought it was a far-fetched story to cover his own drug use, which is endemic among pro athletes (and I personally don’t care what they do to their bodies, just keep our food supply pure!). But this sounds very plausible to me now. I hadn’t realized before that clenbuterol was used on animals, but it’s really no surprise. People still think there is a way to cheat Nature without a backlash.
Oh, and my little garden space in the backyard.
The 1st part of my post didn’t get in so that doesn’t make any sense. I was following Tammi’s lead of the farmers I buy from.
Do you know your farmers? I do! Rolling Hills Farm, Bountiful Blessings Farm, Beaverdam Creek Farm! Meat, eggs, veggies and oh so much more!
This is very interesting to me and only adds to what I have suspected all along. China is training its citizens to distrust “poisoned” food from other countries. I have an uncle who married a Chinese woman who forces herself to vomit after every family get-together here in the States. She claims American food is poisoned. She has planted all sorts of food in their back yard and raises chickens. That’s not bad, but it can be taken too far. She is sickly and probably on the verge of anorexia from this mindset. We must be careful not to create panic. God designed our bodies to take care of the occasional “poisons” in our environment, whether man made or naturally occurring. China is not a good example as a standard maker for other nations. If the Olympians are avoiding these steroids for the purpose of competing, that’s another thing. But, it may also be a symptom of a deeper distrust perpetrated by their totalitarian government.
Well, let’s not forget we have our own totalitarian government to contend with – bought and paid for by Big Ag and Big Pharma – shutting down hard-working raw milk farmers; giving us “Food Guidelines” that have no scientific merit which lead to epidemics of obesity and disease; allowing unlabeled and untested GMO’s in our food system so that our population are guinea pigs for health effects; vaccinating children without parental consent, etc. ad nauseum.
Perhaps, like the Chinese Olympians, we would all be wise to source out our food ourselves and not trust government approved foodstuff in grocery stores.
Amen, Charlene! The Chinese learned “modern” agricultural and business practices from us, let’s not forget. To me, this story is a positive sign that awareness of food purity and quality is spreading among Chinese citizens. Eventually, there will be enough awake and aware Chinese people to put pressure on their government. It’s more overtly totalitarian than ours, but I don’t think we can rest on our laurels any longer as far as living in a democracy. We need to keep pushing back on food and every other issue, IMO.
You can’t take the actions of one Chinese person and extrapolate to the general Chinese population or its government. In economics, this is referred to as the fallacy of composition (what is true for the one is true for the all).
In studies on group perception, it is also called out-group homogeneity effect as opposed to in-group heterogeneity: they are alike; we are diverse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity
“In August 1996, 62 people were admitted into the emergency rooms of 2 hospitals near the city of Caserta (Italy). “Their clinical profile was characteristic of previously occurring clenbuterol intoxication, which reported superventricular extrasystoles and atrial fibrillation. All patients had non-liver beef meat consumption 10-30 min to 2-3 h before symptoms developed (Sporano et al., 1998).” The study performed by Sporano et al. (1998) confirmed using mass spectrometry that the non liver meat eaten by these people was indeed contaminated with clenbuterol. It was also confirmed that clenbuterol was in the blood stream of the patients. This case confirmed that “clenbuterol poisoning can also occur after consumption of beef meat other than liver (Sporano et al., 1998).”
Source:naturallysports.
I like the part about the yak meat! I want some!
Glad that someone in the mainstream is catching on and hopefully encouraging the public to do the same. China allows all kinds of unregulated chemicals to be released into their agriculture (even more so than the US) so its no surprise that they have trouble with this toxic steroid. If animals were only raised in their natural environment it wouldn’t be necessary to even use such toxins.
Looks to be mostly an issue in China and not here?
It could be added to meat here, and not be publicized. There is no telling what they put into conventional meat, as they are not required to label all the hormones and steroids they feed to the cattle. .Not to mention the fact that the government considers chicken manure to be a perfectly fine feed for cattle. I never touch the stuff. Grassfed is more expensive, but it is also much more satisfying, ans shrinks a lot less in cooking. Many people follow Beth’s idea to reduce the cost. I found that we ate less than half as much meat when we switched to grassfed, because it was so much more satisfying. We still eat as much as we want.
Given how fast and huge children are growing nowadays, they seem to be getting growth stimulants from somewhere. Steroid residue in food is one of the likely culprits.
Maybe I should be feeding my small boys conventional meat. Just kidding. It was a joke.
anyone afraid of steroids in their meat is a fool.
Myths, Distortions, and Lies About Beef
http://www.biblelife.org/beef.htm
That’s an interesting thought and one I’d like to see more on. How are children growing today vs. 50 or 100 years ago? My children are on the “small” side compared to their peers, and thin too, but they are lean and strong. And have boundless energy! They eat traditionally and so do I while breastfeeding them long-term. I can’t help but think that more children (not all, obviously) would be like they are if they didn’t get these extra hormones. Hmm….
We eat traditionally, and our little ones are HUGE. 😀 As the eldest, I am actually the shortest (comparatively), and having eaten a conventional diet for part of my childhood may or may not be the cause. All I know is, the oldest of my younger sisters went from being 2 inches shorter than me, to 2 inches taller, in the months after we began drinking raw milk. The others are in the 80-90th percentile in their height. We have a history of very tall people in our family, however. It may all be just genetics. I do think that there is something to be said about chemicals in our environment causing earlier and earlier puberty, though.
What’s the clenbuterol content in America (I’m off to research now but in case you know off hand) because I’ve actually been experieing some headaches and dizziness (and some very mild heart palpitations) no gastric irritation at all.
I don’t eat grassfed/pastured for money issues, could it be the conventional meat then? I was waiting until I moved out in a month or two to start buying grassfed but I suppose I could start buying smaller amounts now if that’s where I’m getting it from.
Iniquity, you could look into an option that is usually more affordable than buying grassfed meat by the piece at the store, and that is to go in with some friends on buying a larger portion directly from a farmer. A quarter of a cow will have a much lower price per pound, and a half a cow will be even lower. If you don’t know of grassfed farmers in your area, you can find one through eatwild.com, localharvest.org, or the nearest Weston Price chapter leader.
Good to know. Hopefully it wont be long before news of just how unhealthy most store bought food is. I’ve just signed up with a local farmers market for free range chickens, eggs and raw milk! Think I’m gonna try to make my own butter too! Have you done it? I’m very excited to have found your blog – Please keep up the good work! I’m learning so much.
Welcome Kristy! So glad to have you as a new reader 🙂