Hitting up Sunday brunch to try and recover from your hangover is one thing. But stuffing your face full of broccoli and cheese chicken breasts as fast as you can should probably be left to the pros—like chow-down all-star Justin D. Mih.
Mih, a Harvard graduate student at the School of Public Health by day, morphs into his alter-ego, super-eater, by night. “I tried to keep it a secret from my parents,” Mih says. “Then I realized parents can Google their kids.”
Despite parental disapproval, Mih enjoys his minor celebrity status. “People talk about you as if you’re some sort of athlete” he says.
He’s entered competitions with pizza, jalapeños, cannoli, crab cakes, grilled cheese, and hot dogs. “The strangest food would be something I signed up for and didn’t participate in: pig’s feet,” Mih says.
Every super-eater has his Kryptonite and Mih met his at a steeple chase, which involves several rounds of different food. “I got to the final round and I had a reversal of fortunes” he says. “Fortunately, they had buckets.”
Last Saturday, he competed in the “Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution World Ramen Noodle Eating Championship” held at the Nintendo World store in Rockefeller Center. In front of a packed crowd of anime junkies and kids, Mih managed to put away 6-7 pounds of ramen before he “hit the wall.”
Entering into a ninja noodle war wasn’t easy. “Everyone has their own training regimen,” Mih says. His secret? Canned vegetables. After gorging on the fiber-filled veggies, he copes with the aftermath in the lab he works in. “There’s an air mattress. I kind of lay there for a while.”
For those interested in super-eating but fear the health risks, don’t fret. Mih assures us, “There’s always a paramedic on hand.”
