Competitive Eating!
People will make a competition out of anything, even eating! Competitive eating is when people come together to eat massive amounts of foods in a short amount of time. It can also be when one person accepts the challenge from a restaurant. Contests are held around the world but they are the most popular in Japan, Canada and the United States. These contests can range from beloved foods like pizza, hot dogs, and chicken wings to stranger foods like bugs. Social media has made watching these competitions very popular. Some competitions are hosted by restaurants where successful people get their picture on the wall of fame and get a t-shirt. Other competitions are on a whole different level and the competitors are eating their way to a cash prize.
The first recorded eating contest was a pie-eating contest in Toronto, Canada, in 1878 and one was actually filmed in 1897 by Thomas Edison’s film company. There are pamphlets from the 1600’s about a performer named Nicholas Wood. He would travel to fairs and festivals and stuff his face with just about anything that was put in front of him. He died very poor in 1630. I am sure he never thought people would know who he was almost 400 years later.
Many restaurants around the world have food challenges where people stuff their faces in the hopes of beating the clock. There is usually no money involved but you can get a free t-shirt, free food and your picture on the wall. One of the most famous of these contests is at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. The challenge is to eat a 72-ounce steak, baked potato, salad, dinner roll and shrimp cocktail in one hour. This challenge began in 1960 and is still going today. So far almost 92,000 people have taken the challenge but only a few more than 10,000 have succeeded.
The most famous eating contest is the Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest. This Fourth of July event has happened every year in Coney Island, New York, since 1972. There are two categories in the competition; one for men and one for women. The time limit is 10 minutes. In 2023 62 hotdogs were eaten by Joey Chestnut. Miki Sudo ate 39.5 hotdogs. Miki has won the women’s competition nine times. Along with winning the Nathan’s competition 16 times, Joey holds 55 world records for eating. Among those world records he has scarfed down the most tacos, eggs, funnel cakes and Twinkies. You can check out the 2024 contest on ESPN.
Is competitive eating a sport? I don’t know. Some people say it is and some say absolutely no, it is not. Major League Eating and the International Federation of Competitive Eating say it is a sport, and competitions are aired on major sports networks. What do you think?