More than you can chew: Swetha Sivakumar explores extreme food records
What makes someone grow the biggest pumpkin or bake the largest loaf in the world? Exactly how risky are those eating competitions? Take a look.
There was a time when I would hear about the world’s largest pumpkin or watch a hot-dog-eating contest, and wonder what motivated people to pursue such extreme feats.
I guess it takes all sorts, I would think to myself. With a little digging, though, I have discovered that there is reason, of a kind, behind many such endeavours: a search for recognition, a sense of pride in one’s work, a wish to reach out to the community (and what better way to do that than giant foods). So, this week, I’m looking at my favourite food records that tell an intriguing story.
* The world’s heaviest pumpkin: Travis Gienger, current Guinness World Record holder in this category, has been growing pumpkins since he was 14.
In April 2023, aged 43, he decided to step up his game. He bought two specially crossbred seeds, at a whopping $600 each, and began to germinate them indoors.
Once germinated, the seedlings were transferred to a hoop house in his garden, with its own heating, lights and premium soil. For months, Gienger devoted about three hours a day to nurturing the two plants as they grew, often skipping major family events to stay on pumpkin duty. He nurtured them on carefully moderated doses of pesticides, fertilisers and a delicate watering schedule. He stayed alert for any signs of trouble (mildew, blight, bacterial leaf spots, etc).
Luckily for Gienger, a horticulture professor from Minnesota, gardening-supply companies helped. They sponsored much of the fertiliser, soil and other supplies. Even with such support, setbacks are to be expected. If a pumpkin grows too quickly, for instance, it can split under its own weight. This happened to one of Gienger’s two giants.
A hailstorm threatened the surviving one, and it was so big by this point that he couldn’t adequately cover it for protection. Thankfully, it survived this too.
Finally, it was harvest time. Gienger had to rent a forklift to lift the pumpkin off the ground and lay it on his trailer. He then drove it across the country, to a contest in California.
At the contest, on October 9, 2023, his world record was confirmed. His pumpkin had tipped the scales at 2,749 lb (1,246.92 kg).
The payoff, besides the thrill and glory, was a prize of $9 per pound, plus a $30,000 bonus for breaking the world record. And profits from selling the seeds of his giant to other growers. The record Gienger broke, incidentally, was set by a pumpkin grown in Italy, which weighed 2,703 lb, or 1,226 kg.
* The biggest meals: Competitive eating is an activity that truly unsettles me. Even if it were my favourite food, like masala dosas, I know that in a few minutes, the joy would turn to discomfort. Flavour fatigue would set in. I would start to feel miserable.
Yet, around the world, people race through mountains of hot dogs, piles of pizzas and pies, even trays full of red-hot chilli peppers.
Most are not gluttons. The top eaters tend to be lean and fit. A healthy body processes the massive calorie load better; and excess belly fat can actually limit stomach expansion.
To compete, in fact, eaters train hard. They stretch their stomachs by consuming large volumes of water or low-calorie foods in a single sitting.
It is still a risky endeavour. While there have been no recorded cases of an actual ruptured stomach, there is the risk of choking, accidentally biting oneself — and suffering from the side-effects of the food itself. Several have in fact died as a result of choking.
Numerous others have had to be hospitalised amid chilli-eating contests.
Extremely fiery chilis, eaten in large volumes, can trigger a pain response that causes blood vessels to constrict, raising blood-pressure levels. An American teen with a congenital heart problem even died in 2024, not during an eating contest but after he ate an extremely spicy chip that was being sold at the time, in singles, in a coffin-shaped cardboard box, to create buzz on social media (it was then pulled from shelves).
The risks are so high at eating contests in general that paramedics often stand by. It all seems like a lot, for the sake of bragging rights (prizes rarely exceed a few thousand dollars).
* A giant loaf: Cooking food on a monumental scale often makes for the best kind of food record. Such events are held for fun, for charity, or for the sheer joy of breaking bread together — and breaking a record.
One of my favourite examples is the world’s largest loaf, baked in Curitiba, Brazil, by bakery owner Joaquim Goncalves. To celebrate Guinness World Records Day and generate local buzz, Goncalves and his team built a special oven on-site.
They then spent hours in a coordinated effort, mixing, moulding and fretting over the massive pile of dough. Once the bread was baked and the record confirmed by Guinness, the 1,571-kg loaf was sliced and shared with thousands of attendees.
Set in 2008, the record still stands.
The rabbit holes I went down in my research on this subject have caused quite a change of heart. Going forward, I will refrain from judging such contests at face value. (I will still look askance at competitive eating, though. The sheer waste alone… mon dieu!)
(To reach Swetha Sivakumar with questions or feedback, email upgrademyfood@gmail.com)
