21 Pounds Of Grits

If I don’t love you baby
Grits ain’t grocery,
Eggs ain’t poultry,
And Mona Lisa was a man

from the song “Grits Ain’t Groceries” by Titus Turner

I like grits. I take mine with butter, a little salt and pepper. I’ve seen folks put, maple syrup, corn syrup, sugar, and even ketchup on grits. I like places that serve you grits even when you don’t ask for them, places where grits are just part of the meal, a given. That being said, I found this Breitbart/AP story a bit, shall we say, hard to digest.

Pat Bertoletti, a mohawk-sporting chef from Chicago gulped down 21 pounds of buttery, goopy grits in 10 minutes to win $4,000 in the first World Grits Eating Championship at Louisiana Downs on Saturday.

The grits were presented in 2-pound trays, each about 8 inches by 6 inches and 1 1/2 inches deep, said Ryan Nerz, a spokesman for Major League Eating.

Bertoletti, in a statement, said the race “tested our stomach capacity like no other.”
The buzz going in was that a lot of grits would go down because they are so easy to eat, Nerz said.

21 pounds of grits!!

First off, the fact that there is an entity called “Major League Eating” is absurd. Eating is not a sport. I don’t care about the fact that they show this suff on ESPN. I don’t care that these people allegedly “train” for months to prepare for these events. They are not athletes and eating is not a sport.

Watching some guy pound a bunch of hot dogs or slam jalapenos or suck up a bunch of oysters does not fall in to the same parameters as watching football, baseball, soccer or skiing.

Watching somebody over eat is a spectacle, not a sport.

I would think that it is safe to say that eating 21 pounds of grits is dangerous. Eating 21 pounds of anything is unhealthy. I think that if you sat down and ate 21 pounds of lettuce, you would feel bad.

Supporting this nonsense, offering $4,000 to the person that eats 21 pounds of grits is worse. Actually, there is an element of cruelty here. Let’s see; we have a group of people over here that need money and/or a burning desire to get some recognition of any kind. How can we manipulate these people’s lack of funds and self worth and at the same provide maximum entertainment? I know, we can make them eat boiled hominy and lots of it.

Remember those old western movies when there is a pathetic, broke drunkard standing outside the saloon? The cowboys all get together and make the drunkard sing “How Dry I Am” and then laugh a big laugh, throw a couple of coins at the poor man. That’s what competitive eating reminds me of.

Actually, that gives me a great idea. If we find entertainment in paying people to participate in over eating contests; why stop there? We should have competitive vodka and tequila drinking contests. There should be a “Major League Drinking” orginization. That would provide endless yuks. You could have obstacles. A contestant would be eliminated if they fell down a set of stairs, hit on the boss’ wife, drove his car in to a bridge abutment.

Why stop there? Why don’t we see who can smoke the most pot or, snort the most cocaine or, shoot the most heroin?

Come on people, we have to take responsibility as consumers here. Clearly, we enjoy watching people stuff their faces with doughnuts and sausages. Clearly, we get a kick out of watching people engage in harmful consumption. We are cheating ourselves by limiting our enjoyment to watching the consumption of food items. At the same time, there are people in this world, who have no interest in gobbling up Krystal burgers but would slam 30 shots of Jagermeister for cash, that aren’t getting a fair shake. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to them to make all forms of self abusive behavior fair game for our enjoyment.

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Tags: competitive eating, grits