I’m a professional eater — I can devour 100 dumplings in 10 minutes and 17 pounds of steak in an hour
This professional eater is providing some food for thought.
A California woman who travels the world to compete in food-eating challenges is speaking out about her unusual occupation, which has netted her $30,000 in prize money.
Raina Huang, 29, can scoff 100 plates of sushi in 35 minutes and devour 100 dumplings in just 10 minutes.
The ravenous beauty has also become a bona fide star on social media, cooking up more than 4.3 million followers on TikTok and YouTube by sharing clips of herself downing delicious foods.
“I’ve just eaten a lot and fast all my life and it’s become easy,” Huang told South West News Service. “I think it stems from playing video games — I just wanted to eat fast so I could go back to my game.”
“It’s become my full-time job now and I’m very grateful that I’m able to be in this position where restaurants are inviting me to come and try their challenges,” the 5-foot-2 social media star proclaimed.
Huang’s favorite food to eat in bulk is Mexican because she believes it’s the easiest to chow down in a hurry.
“Burrito challenges are great as they are so soft, so I think I can complete them quite quickly,” she declared.
However, in the world of competitive eating, faster is not always better.
Huang recently partook in a food challenge in Taiwan, where she ate 17 pounds of steak in just 70 minutes.
However, the foodie was bested by an Asian eater, who devoured more steak — albeit at a slower pace.
“That’s something I’ve noticed in the differences between the competitive eaters in Asia and America,” she stated to SWNS. “Asian competitive eaters like to sit for a long time, whereas Americans like to get it down fast.”
Huang seemingly supplements her earnings with money made via social media.
“I tried to be a part of the entertainment industry as I wanted to be an actor or singer but that’s very saturated,” the Californian cuisine crusher claimed. “But it was whilst I was working as a chef that one day someone told me to do a food challenge, and I was able to eat a 4-pound burrito in six minutes.”
“Someone recorded me doing it and the video did so much better than anything had ever done and I thought ‘Oh my god, people like to watch me eat,’” she added.
“After five months of doing YouTube constantly, I took a leap of faith and decided to go for it full-time,” she said of her professional eating endeavors. “My family was questioning it at first but eventually they were very supportive and now they are so happy. Now I’m making more than I was a chef, which was $2,000 a month at the time.”
Huang has managed to maintain an incredibly fit physique despite her enormous appetite, but she didn’t dish details about how she manages to stay in tip-top shape.
The professional eater plans to partake in more competitions this year and hopes to eventually head to the UK to sample some of their classic cuisine.
For Huang, the world is her oyster — and she can eat plenty of those, too.
