Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
COMPETITIVE EATERS HUNGRY FOR
Rigorous training, determination, a desire to win at almost any cost and a very stretchy waistband – this is the weird world of competitive eating, which Americans even call a sport.
It’s where people eat – or mostly just swallow, barely-chewed – vast quantities of food, often supersized, within a given time in front of a crowd.
But now the world of super-eaters could finally be fit to burst as scientists have worked out the limits of what the human body can physically scoff.
And it’s a lot. With intense training, they concluded a human male could eat as much as a bear, at about 800g a minute in a short burst.
Doesn’t really sound that much you might think? Think again.
After studying the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in New York, they predict the most food a person is capable of consuming in 10 minutes is 84 hot dogs (in buns of course).
And we’re not far away already – the current record is held by American Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, who managed 75.
For many competitive eaters though, there simply are no limits.
“It is mind over stomach matter,” Crazy Legs Conti, 46, a competitive eater from Massachusetts, US, says. “It is about knowing and accepting what it is to feel that full and nauseous.”
You coul d be forgiven for thinking “only in America”, but while the facestuffing competitions are huge in the States – and the portions even bigger – it is also growing in the UK.
So surely a lot of waistlines will be too? Well, not if they look anything like the UK’S top female competitive eater, Leah Shutkever from Redditch, Worcs.
From glancing at her Instagram you’d think the size 10, 30-yearold was a fitness influencer, not someone who has broken records by eating 5lb burritos, speed-eating a 750g jar of Nutella, and 1,000 Jaffa Cakes.
And yet she has an unbelievably trim figure and insists she’s as fit as a fiddle. “Fitness was my lifestyle 10 years before I started doing food challenges so I have a good understanding of nutrition, exercise and most importantly, my body,” she says. “I’m a very disciplined person so if I have to fast in the run-up to a challenge, I will do that.”
The competitive eater went viral after she was filmed eating a 5lb Mexican feast at the Mission Burrito restaurant in Birmingham in March 2018 and now she has a huge following online.
She also holds several Guinness World Record titles for stuffing her face, including the triple world record for the fastest time to eat a burrito – 35.26 seconds; the fastest time to drink one litre of gravy in 1 minute 49 seconds; the fastest time to eat three pickled eggs in 7.80 seconds and eating 10 jam doughnuts in three minutes.
Leah even managed to beat
Britain’s strongest man, Eddie “The Beast” Hall, in finishing 2kgs of chicken wings covered in stuffing, pigs in blankets, and cheese sauce.
Leah got into competitive eating as a bit of sibling-rivalry
with her older