Competitive eating is where people eat large amounts of food in a given time, usually within 15 minutes, and the participant that eats the most receives a prize.
Although, the type of food varies, it is usually either fast food or dessert. Many items are used for these competitions, such as pies, hot dogs etc. These people do not participate for fun, because as we know, for most of us, the enjoyment ends after the second hotdog and there cannot be fun involved with stuffing ourselves.
Competitive eating is famous in the USA and these eaters are also known as “gurgitators.”
These contests are nothing new and could very possibly date back to our ancestors living in caves. The first picture of competitive eating can be visualized as – 20 hungry Neanderthals in a cave fighting over a single rabbit.
These eating competitions were extremely popular in Japan in the 1990’s but things changed when a few people were choked to death during these competitions and then they were actually looked down upon for a long time, only to slowly emerge again.
The most famous and televised competition of the recent days is, Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, which has been conducted every year on July 4, ever since 1916, and has become almost a tradition at Coney Island. This contest was won by Takeru Kobayasi and IFOCE eater, right from 2001 to 2006, and he was beaten by Joey Chestnut in 2007.
Looking at the professional competitions on competitive eating, there is the IFOCE (International Federation of Competitive Eating) and AICE (Association of Independent Competitive Eaters.)
Eating was established as a sport by the IFOCE, in the 1990s, and now it hosts many major league eating events worldwide every year, almost more than 100. It has also launched Major League Eating with an idea to “brand” the competition, where they also provide their brand of t-shirts and other things. It might seem surprising but competitive eaters are a huge community as big as MySpace and IFOCE offers videos of eaters and contests, to their fans.
The prize money that is won in these competitions is huge too. The IFOCE awarded about $350,000 in 2006.
Most of the participants in these competitive eating contests are men; however, you will find a few female competitors too, who are some of the world’s best eaters. When talking about best eaters, we picture them as huge people, but surprisingly, most of them are small built and do not weigh a lot; like Natsuko “Gal” Sone, who demonstrated excellent eating skills in Japan, but weighs only 95 pounds (43 kgs.)
These competitions, just like other sports, have rules to be followed, in order to avoid getting disqualified. The food is either weighed or cut into same-sized pieces and all participants have to start only after a signal is given. There is no restriction on how they eat the food; they can either break it into smaller pieces or just shove the whole thing in. They can dip the food into any liquid to make it soft. For foods such as hot dogs, where there is a bun and hot dog, they can be eaten separately. When time is up, the contestants with food in their mouth are allowed to swallow it.
The question that comes to our mind is, what if someone vomits? The word “vomit” is not used, as it sounds gross but they call it “a Roman incident.” Anyone who has this incident is only disqualified if it touches the plate or table. After the competition, the participants can rid themselves of all the food they have eaten.
It is amazing, the amount of food these participants can consume. There is a little secret called “water dunk,” which helps them consume huge amounts of food. Almost all competitors keep water on the table to dip food as this softens the food and makes it easier to chew and swallow. Actually, any liquid can be used but since water does not have calories, they use water. Another important technique is to break the food into smaller pieces, to fit more in the mouth at once. The “solomon technique” followed by ace eater, Kobayashi, which has also come to be known as “Japanesing,” is to break a hot dog into two pieces and stuff both pieces together. This is to reduce the length of the hotdog. Most of the serious eaters eat their buns and dogs separately.
Not everything is major league on the eating front. There are many amateur eating challenges between friends and strangers too. There are associations such as Federation of Amateur Eating Contests, who have eating challenges for visitors of restaurants. Usually the loser has to foot the bill. Many such competitions have more than 20 contestants participating.
Although, competitive eating is something many people enjoy, doctors have something else to say. They say that this sort of eating could lead to problems with the stomach, including stomach pains and over a period of time, with constant stretching, the stomach may stop functioning. It could also lead to obesity and diabetes.
Even Guinness stopped accepting these records after the last record of Peter Dowdeswell, who is Guinness Book of World Record’s holder for competitive eating.
