Britain bans Aussies' go-faster snack

Australia's Commonwealth Games team is up in arms after British officials banned its favourite snack - muesli bars.

Cases containing more than 7,000 of the K-time Twist and LCM breakfast snack bars, which are said to fuel the success of "superfish" Ian Thorpe and his gold-medal team mates, have been refused clearance by UK authorities.

The Australian-made Kellogg's snacks were destined to be consumed by Australia's 371 Commonwealth Games athletes in Manchester but have been barred unless the food giant provides its secret recipes and measurements of each ingredient.

Although Kellogg's has a large plant in the city hosting this year's games in 15 days' time the products requested by the Australian team are not available in England.

Now partisan Australian sports commentators are asking: "What is England more afraid of ... the superior Aussie athletes or their breakfast snacks?"

The problem appears to be that the bars contain yogurt, milk, eggs and honey, which are restricted imports to Britain because of disease fears.

Frustrated Australian Commonwealth Games Association chief Perry Crosswhite said the request involved Kellogg's revealing trade secrets.

"What they are asking is extreme," he said. "It's a healthy product recommended by our nutritionist."

The international food giant was planning to send 74 cases of the bars, including yogurt and strawberry, banana and strawberry, coco-pops and rice bubbles LCMs, to Manchester. Worldwide freight forwarding company Schenker Australia, engaged to deliver the bars, was told British environmental health officials needed to know the ingredients of all the muesli bars before they could be imported.

But after they complied, they were then said to have demanded the percentage of ingredients in each bar.

Kellogg's is a long-time supporter of Australia's Commonwealth Games team and sent similar products to the 1998 team which topped the medal table in Kuala Lumpur.

The Australians were so successful the Games were re-named the Koala Lumpur games by some media.

Australian Commonwealth team nutritionist, Dr Louise Burke, said the breakfast bars were being sent to the team because menus from the athletes' village dining hall lacked such essential healthy snacks.

"They are a good source of carbohydrate and they are low in fat," said Dr Burke today.

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Netball Australia has announced it has been forced to introduce a zero-tolerance policy with fines to protect the sport's clean-cut image. It was severely damaged when a female Adelaide Ravens player was seen to mouth the F-word during a national television broadcast.