[imagesource:wikicommons]

As a skinny guy that struggles to finish half a Butler’s pizza, I am fascinated by the world of competitive eating.

Granted, their pizzas are great, but there just never seems to be enough stomach in me to polish a Baconator by myself, regardless of whether it has my favourite vegetable on it, namely a triple portion of bacon.

Sorry about that Babe, but you should have stayed out of the city.

It was the shame of having to take my leftover pizza to work the next morning that led me down a YouTube rabbit hole, and as the algorithm guided me through a maze of people stuffing impossible amounts of food down their gullets, I found myself fascinated with the ‘food challenge trends’.

Competitive eating, or speed eating, is an activity in which participants compete against each other to eat large quantities of food, usually in a short time period. Contests are typically eight to ten minutes long, although some competitions can last up to thirty minutes, with the person consuming the most food being declared the winner.

This may sound like Christmas lunch in an Afrikaner household, but contestants often manage to cram more than 30 hotdogs down their throats in the space of a few minutes. One of these professional gluttons that I have come to follow is Adam Moran, or BeardMeatsFood, as he is known on Youtube.

Moran quit his job as a stockbroker to focus on competitive eating after he won a Sheppard’s Pie eating contest in Leeds, UK. These days, he travels around the world, eating the most ridiculous amounts of food, and making millions doing so.

There really is no way to describe how he does it, so you will have to take a look for yourself below. But before you watch him devour a meal that could probably feed me for nine days, we have to ask where all that food goes.

Moran is one of the many professional eaters that are able to eat in excess of five to six kilograms of food without getting sick or exploding. So how is this even possible?

Competitive eaters learn to stretch and relax their stomachs to fit in more food by eating large amounts of low-calories foods and liquids including water, diet soda, watermelon and cabbage. The stretching does not go on indefinitely, however.

Most of these eaters do have to ‘purge’ afterwards, but people like Moran manage to keep their food down and let it pass ‘naturally’. He has even been appointed as a food tester by an American-style diner chain in Yorkshire, which took out R20 million insurance on his stomach and tastebuds. Despite the freakish eating habits, Moran manages to stay fit and healthy and works out two hours a day. He’s also an entertaining guy.

Watching these nutters go to town on one of these monster meals will either make you hungry or leave you horrified, so we suggest you get your Butler’s order in before you watch the video.

Maybe I’ll give the Baconator another go tonight.

[source:youtube&wikipedia]