Win an Eating Contest

Competitive eating (also known as speed eating) is a popular pastime in the United States and Japan, where the prize money can make it a very worthwhile endeavor. If you're keen to win an amateur eating contest, this article will help you get off to a flying start.

Steps

Prepare

1. Be in good physical and mental shape. It is important to ensure that you're healthy and fit before trying an eating contest. Consult your physician before the contest and get their advice. Make sure that you aren't on medication that shouldn't be taken with food. Check with contest officials that EMTs and an ambulance will be present in the event of choking or allergic reactions, or third-degree burns on the roof of your mouth from searing hot taco beef.
2. Look for eating contests that are close to you. Find out how to apply and what things you need to know to be involved by phoning or calling in person to see the event organizer. Besides the local news, you can look online at the sites of the professional eating bodies, such as Major League Eating and the Association of Independent Competitive Eaters, to see what contests they are running or supporting. As an amateur, things that you might like to look for in the competition include:
   • Short length (no more than 7-8 minutes)
   • Food that you like eating (there's not much point eating food you detest)
   • Picnic-style eating (this means eating without making a mess, at a good pace and not disrespectfully)
   • A fun occasion, with people not taking it too seriously but wanting to enjoy it.
3. Practice at home briefly before you enter a contest so that you know how it feels and what to expect when eating the food quickly. Try the same foods that are used in the contest, and importantly, these should be foods that you enjoy eating and are already familiar with. Don't overdo this "practice run"–just treat it as a familiarization exercise. When trialing, it can be helpful to look for ways to make the food go down faster and more easily. For example (and subject to the contest rules):
   • Can you fold the food to make it easier to swallow?
   • Can you tear it into pieces to make it go down faster? Practice coordinating your hands and mouth so that your hands can be tearing food into more edible portions, while your mouth keeps chewing. You won't have time to think about it.
   • Can you make some of the food propel other parts of the food down faster, such as using cheese to help pizza base slide down?
   • Check your chewing and swallowing techniques and see if you can do anything to improve these for the contest.
4. Train your brain. It can't hurt to do some mental limbering up to help you prepare for the contest. Visualize succeeding and enjoying the occasion in the lead-up. Professionals also train to try to overcome our brain's natural "stop-eating" signals, but this not a healthy approach for amateurs to take and could lead to unhealthy eating habits in your everyday life.
5. Eat normally before the contest. Starving yourself is unhealthy for the body, so eat light meals up until the contest day. Fasting can also cause your stomach to tighten up, which you definitely don't want!
6. Try to exercise regularly before the contest. Exercise will keep you flexible, focused, and in good shape.
7. Learn to breathe through your nose if you don't do this normally. You won't have time to mouth breathe while you are eating.
8. Prior to the contest, consume as few liquids (water, soda, alcoholic beverages, etc.) as possible. Too many liquids will only fill the stomach, creating less room for food. However, some professionals do advise that it is fine to drink up to a liter of water to help expand the stomach, and to have herbal tea for calming and cleansing. In addition, do not drink milk during the contest because you risk vomiting through your nose.

Choose your food

1. Start out "soft" when you begin. If you're new to eating contests, it can be a good idea to begin with soft items such as pancakes, grits, meatballs, and funnel cakes. You can progress to harder and multiple foods as you feel more confident.
2. Avoid entering any competition where the food is not right for you. If it makes you feel sick, if you're allergic to it, if you just plain hate it, where's the fun or sense in that? Be selective!
3. Know how to eat the food the best way possible. Knowing how food behaves when eaten is important, and if you've practiced at home already, you should have a good idea of what works and what does not. For some additional tips:
   • Hot dogs - see wikiHow's article on winning a hot dog eating contest
   • Matzo balls - try to avoid the broth and aim only for the balls; and use your hands, not the utensils!
   • Pies - see wikiHow's article on Win a Pie Eating Contest.

On the day

1. Read up on the rules before attempting the eating contest. There are some basic things that apply to many competitive eating competitions:
   • Find out if "chipmunking" is permitted - this is the practice of stuffing in as much food as possible before chewing it and swallowing - usually there will be a time limit on how long you can keep this in your mouth;
   • Find out if "dunking" is permitted - this is where you are allowed to dunk your food in water to make it softer and easier to swallow; be aware, however, that doing this is considered fairly disrespectful of the food;
   • Know whether or not you can make a mess eating. Some contests insist that you keep the area clean (picnic-style), others let you make a mess. It all depends on the type of food you're eating and how much mess you think you might make. Picnic-style is probably better for amateurs, as it encourages you to pace yourself and be conscious of the eating process as it is happening, rather than simply gorging yourself silly.
   • Understand that vomiting is considered to be a disqualification in most eating contests. If you get to this point, you're probably not enjoying yourself anyway!
2. Take it easy. While that may sound odd, it is important not to panic or rush, but to eat steadily with speed. If you panic or rush, you will make mistakes and be less successful.
3. Enjoy yourself. While it's competitive, it's meant to be "fun competitive" and if you're taking it too seriously, then it's probably better to play a ball game to release your pent-up energy.
4. Relax that evening and eat very lightly, if at all, and drink only water. Let your body settle back into its normal routine and eat as usual the following day, or when you feel ready.

Tips

• Try this little-known technique to make more room in the stomach: After eating, when you begin to feel slightly full, stand up and wiggle your hips from side to side for 5-10 seconds. Apparently, this makes the food go down your esophagus faster and squashes it up in your stomach.
• If you're eating anything with bread, try dipping it in water first. It sounds strange, but it works! It makes the bread and anything else on it easier to eat, swallow, and digest.
• When your mouth is busy chewing make sure to 'chew' the food on the plate with your hands. Turning food as mushy as possible saves valuable mouth time.
• Professional competitive eaters train their stomachs to expand with a regime of exercise, drinking a lot of water, and eating high fiber foods, especially foods like cabbage. Boiled cabbage is considered a staple of many competitive eaters, and many professionals often go on a three or four day diet of nothing but cabbage to allow the gases in the cabbage time to expand the stomach. It's not recommended that you go down this path as an amateur!
• Think seriously if you ever want to involve yourself in competitive eating as a "sport". A once-off try for fun is one thing, but the treatment of competitive eating as a sport has major drawbacks, including social and health problems. A lot of criticism has been leveled at competitive eating as being a display of gluttony at a time when many people are starving, and it is also source of bad role modeling for children suffering from obesity. In addition, to undertake this as a sport for any length of time can endanger your health, especially if you have a predisposition to such diseases as diabetes.
• To help expand your stomach before any competition, eat around a cup full of raw plain rice and quickly follow it up with another cup of very hot water (as close to boiling as you can tolerate).

Warnings

• If you can't possibly eat another bite, just stop. Force-feeding yourself can cause choking. Also, food begins digesting in the stomach as you eat, and a soupy, liquid mixture called chyme starts to form as the result of stomach churnings and chemicals that aid in digestion. All of this could back up the esophagus and cause vomiting, but food and chyme piling up on top of each other could cause them to spill over into your air tube. It's better to lose the contest than become sick over it.
• Don't go five days without eating before the contest. It could cause you to become sick, and then you won't be ready for the eating contest at all.
• Eating too much of anything is very dangerous and unhealthy. It is also a waste of good food! Be very careful and know the risks of eating contests.
• You can't possibly eat anything dry continuously, no matter how long you try, so take little sips of water as you eat to aid digestion. Even Kobayashi, the greatest eating contest legend, can never finish any eating contest without drinking water.
• While the contest organizers should be stopping anyone who is intoxicated, you should still be aware that it is never appropriate to go to an eating contest drunk; you can die trying to compete in an inebriated state.

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