We eat to live and not live to eat

While suffering from an unexplainable stomach ache that went on for weeks, my sadistic best friend YouTube started suggesting videos that were unbearable to watch at my delicate health condition: food competitions.

The first video was of a bearded man with a stack of burgers right in front of him. The man looked skinny and there was no way that he could finish that amount of food. I clicked the video out of sheer curiosity and the minute he started wolfing down the burgers, my tummy ache worsened and I had to stop the video at once.

Sensing my sensitive state, YouTube suggested something lighter: cake eating competition done by the same bearded man. In this video, he heads to a famous pastry shop somewhere in England and asks about their cake eating competition. Their record was of a German finishing 13 slices of cake. Mr. Beard aims for 20 thick slices of different flavours and achieves it within the given time. YouTuber Adam Moran, whose channel is called BeardMeatsFood, turned out to be the famous British food competitor.

Other episodes include attempting to eat 4.5 kg of Toblerone milk chocolate, huge boxes of Diamant and Cadbury and a 5 kg Easter egg (failed at every one of them). Yet he managed to finish 200 pieces of Ferrero Rochet in less than an hour, which nobody had done before, according to him.

YouTube then introduced the feminine version of Adam, an American called Katina. Katina’s YouTube Channel is called KatinaEatKilos and I found her to be more charming than Adam. As Adam seems to be focused on his mission of eating, Katina focuses on her experience while eating, sharing the taste and food texture with the viewers. Some of Katina’s videos have her partner Randy who is a competitor eater too and sometimes they’d compete together which is fun to watch as they always plan a strategy to finish before time.

It was interesting watching Adam and Katina attempt to eat the Tube of Terror challenge (peanuts coated in a blend of five hottest peppers on earth). The instructions were clear: one to two peanuts at a time till the tube is finished, wait for 5 minutes for the heat to kick in before you can consume anything right after it. As for Adam, he kept eating without commenting yet discomfort was written all over his face and while waiting he said that he couldn’t feel his hands and had to stop the challenge.

Katina was smarter as she talked throughout the challenge describing how her ears were ringing and her throat hurt badly. During the five minutes wait — and as a distracting technique — she started answering her fans’ questions on Instagram till her time was up.

Soon after, I decided to find out more about competitive eating. Historically speaking, the first mention of it was in 1630 in Kent where Nicholas Wood performed in fairs and festivals, accepting challenges that included eating 400 pigeons at one meal. These days, food competitions are popular in the US, Canada and Japan where they’re organised professionally and winners are awarded cash prizes.

Competitors must stay lean as belly fat can restrict its expansion. They also learn to drink excessive amounts of liquid to stretch their stomachs and have strong jaws so as not to get tired fast. And like every job it comes with risks as competitors could suffer stomach and throat perforations, obesity and choking to death. No matter how fascinating competitive eating sounds, it’s worth remembering that we eat to live and not live to eat.