Sunday Times

Editor’s Note

- Andrea Nagel For comments, criticism or praise, write to nagela@sundaytime­s.co.za

There’s no accounting for taste. Especially if you’re Erik The Electric, who ate 5,000 calories of doughnuts every day for an entire week. The week before, Erik guzzled 5,000 calories of McDonald’s to warm up for his doughnut challenge. The Electric’s real name is Erik Lamil, a profession­al competitiv­e eater who travels around the US taking on food challenges, shoveling in thousands of calories of pizza, ice cream and cheeseburg­ers in as short a time as possible.

Lamil describes himself as a super athlete whose sport is eating. He once challenged himself to gain 30 pounds in one day — and he did. That challenge was viewed over 1.2 million times. Lamil documents his extreme food challenges on YouTube and has made eating his fulltime job — this is after being anorexic as a teenager.

Of course, if something is considered a sport, there must be fellow competitor­s, and Matthew Kai “Megatoad” Stonie gives Lamil a run for his money. He’s the number three ranked competitiv­e eater in Major League Eating. Stonie won the 2015 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, dethroning eighttime defending champion Joey Chestnut (Chestnut is currently ranked the number one eater in the world).

Stonie has eaten 108 tacos in eight minutes — remember, there’s also speed to consider when you’re stuffing calories competitiv­ely down your throat. So as not to be outdone by anyone on the gorging-yourself circuit, Stonie also once ate a pizza with over a thousand pepperoni slices. He is currently whipping Lamil in YouTube views.

South Korea has its own YouTube eating craze called Muk-bang where beautiful women film themselves eating stomach-turning delicacies like huge bursting sea snails to get likes and comments on the Cringetopi­a community page. But nobody’s judging ... hey, some people like to watch others popping pimples for fun.

There’s no accounting for taste, but we hope that in this issue you’ll find something to yours — from the drag queens of District Six to the real boxers that the local film Knuckle City is based on. And I hope you enjoy our interview with chef Dorah Sitole, a purveyor of real fine food.

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