USA TODAY International Edition
Golden Chloe Kim has secret snack: SPAM
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – The father of U.S. snowboarder Chloe Kim has revealed something about his daughter that might surprise nutritionists and those still marveling at her gold medal-winning performance during the 2018 Winter Olympics.
She grew up eating SPAM.
In fact, the 17-year-old still eats the canned cooked meat famously fed to U.S. soldiers during World War II, according to her father, Jong Jin Kim.
“When she was very young, she was eating the SPAM, at least once a week,” he told USA TODAY. “We always have SPAM in our food storage. We don’t eat it every day, but at least once a week.
“No one recommends you eat SPAM as a healthy food, right? But same time it’s kind of, we eat it, like who cares. Like she’s a teenager, so we don’t really consider it a bad food, but we don’t consider it a healthy food. It’s one of our favorite snacks.”
Yes, this is an Olympic story, albeit one of a curious cultural sort.
SPAM products are prominently displayed in South Korea in convenience stores, and a variety of SPAM products can be found in grocery stores. This might come as a surprise to most Americans, but not to Chloe Kim’s parents, who were born in South Korea.
SPAM was introduced here by U.S. soldiers in the early 1950s during the Korean War. Jong Jin Kim, 62, said it was considered a “luxury food.”
“Only for the rich,” he said. “Not easy to buy.”
Now the classic 12-ounce cans are for sale at many convenience and grocery stores and can be purchased for a few bucks.
SPAM might never rival kimchi, soft tofu stew or bibimbap among this country’s favorite foods, but it appears to have a special place in the hearts — and stomachs — of South Koreans. The USA remains the biggest consumer of SPAM, but about two-thirds as much is sold in South Korea, said Jaynee Dykes, international brand manager for the SPAM® brand.
Keep in mind that South Korea has a population of about 50 million and the USA has a population of about 320 million. “We’re excited that the Olympics are there and we’re very proud of all the love for SPAM there is on the market,” Dykes said.
With a chuckle, she acknowledged that for Olympic training purposes, athletes might be opting for lean meat such as chicken rather than SPAM, which is made of six ingredients: pork, salt, water, potato starch, sugar and sodium nitrite.
“There’s no reason that SPAM could not be incorporated into a training diet,” she said. “But then again, we might be a bit biased.”
Then there was a discovery.
A PR agency that works with Hormel Foods Corporations, maker of SPAM, did some digging.
“I wanted to add one thing that our SPAM brand confirmed today,” Brian Olson, a spokesman for Hormel Foods, told USA TODAY via email.
“American snowboarder and gold medalist Chloe Kim … is a fan of the SPAM brand.”
The Kim family’s dish of choice is “spam sushi,” where spam is used in lieu of seafood, Jong Jin Kim said.
After countless snowboard runs and spam sushi rolls, she made it here — and atop the podium.
Jong Jin Kim said he’s not sure if his daughter ate SPAM when she was competing here because she was living in the Olympic village. But he doesn’t know why anybody would object.
“She’s a teenager,” he said, “so she can digest anything.”