Food Eating Challenge: A Financial Services Employee And A Mound Of Starbursts Enter A Room (Update)

Who will emerge victorious? We'll know soon. The challenge: 500 Starbursts in 12 hours. The contender: a financial analyst whose eyes may or may not be bigger than his stomach (41.666 in an hour? Don't offer me that. 41.666 every hour for 12 hours? That's a challenge). The progress so far: he started at 8:30 CDT and has put away 250. The bonus: he's live-streaming the event. Live broadcasting by Ustream

Author:: Bess Levin
Updated:: Jan 14, 2019
Original:: Aug 2, 2012

Who will emerge victorious? We'll know soon. The challenge: 500 Starbursts in 12 hours. The contender: a financial analyst whose eyes may or may not be bigger than his stomach (41.666 in an hour? Don't offer me that. 41.666 every hour for 12 hours? That's a challenge). On the table: $500. The progress so far: he started at 8:30 CDT and has put away 250. The commentary: "He says he's uncomfortable, but not disgusted. Yet." The bonus: he's live-streaming the event.

Live broadcasting by Ustream

Stay tuned.

Update: He did it.

As you all are well aware, from time to time we cover food eating challenges around these parts. We don't chronicle all the feats of gastrointestinal fortitude that come our way, though, because while we love you all, not all of your FECs constitute what we'd consider an actual challenge worth covering. As previously discussed, our high bar has everything to do with the first contest we ever wrote about (as a postmortem), which involved a man named Oyster Boy, who consumed 244 oysters in 1 hour at Ulysses, throwing down the gauntlet down for one of you to pick up, vis-à-vis goring yourself for sport. Do we really expect anyone to match OB in magnitude or strength of stomach lining? No, we do not. Having said that, "challenges" such as eating 8 vending machine items in 12 hours (or in an unlimited amount of time!) are not going to cut it. It's not an exact science but we look for FECs that are imaginative, topical, and/or represent a high degree of difficulty. (And while we wouldn't actually advise it, live streaming the whole thing would make our day.) Which brings us to today's challenge. It occurred at an investment bank in midtown and although it loses points for not letting us know ahead of time so that we could chronicle the thing in real time, there are a number of things we like about it. Intern vs. VP. [Redacted] intern's last day (ever?). A dozen donuts each from our friends at DD. 1 hour limit to finish...Intern: larger build, 6'1" and extremely ambitious. VP: fit and 5'8" with a vicious appetite. Identical donut selection includes: - 2 chocolate - 2 glazed - 1 sugar - 2 strawberry frosted - 2 chocolate frosted - 1 blueberry - 1 Oreo crumble - 1 Boston creme VP downed the whole thing in 13:31. Intern disappointingly tapped out shortly after at 9 donuts and a bite. Intern is feeling "terrible," is alternating between a sugar rush and mild depression, and wants to sleep under his desk. It's not clear what's going on in his mind and body. Besides looking very uncomfortable, he's having a hard time responding to questions with any answer besides "I don't know." He's buying drinks for everyone tonight. Obviously there's zero sense of urgency here as a result of getting a recap rather than doing it live. But! Twelve adult-sized donuts (as opposed to a bunch of munchkins)? Good. Thirteen minutes for the whole spread? Good. Pitting a superior against an underling (rather than making a couple of interns race each other)? GOOD. Take these ideas, particularly the last one and run with them. Feel free to come up with your own but at least just consider making founder vs. peasant/30 minutes/2 chocolate fountains each/70-100 items to dip/race to the finish happen.

It's another vending machine challenge and you know how we feel about those (too much time, not enough food, doesn't put hair on anyone's chest) BUT it does involve a contract (described as "amazing" by the half of Dealbreaker that was at one time licensed to practice law in New York), the terms of which state that in the event of a loss, the loser will pay for a lunch he's not invited to, so we've got award points for that.

As many of you know, around these parts we are constantly debating the merits of various financial services employees' food eating challenges. Historically, we've detracted points for allowing the participants far too much time to complete the task at hand (opening bell to close, might as well just make it limitless), an insufficient volume of food (a box of Munchkins, considered by many to be a snack), and lack of originality (vending machine challenges have been done). On the flip side, we've applauded creativity (an investment banker and 500 Starburst enter a room and there's a webcam involved),* obscene amounts of food and enough sugar to cause hyperglycemia (244 oysters, a cupcake of death), and topicality (the delicacy that is the Sausage Pancake Bite: yes! Double Downs: double yes!). Which brings us to this: the Herbalife Food Eating Challenge. New York Observer reporter Patrick Clark noticed that while the Herbalife story has been covered by many an angle so far (the blood-sucking pyramid scheme angle, the grandma angle, the Dan Loeb/UWS hedge fund manager on UWS hedge fund manager angle), the most important angle of all had yet to be explored: the actual ingesting of this stuff angle.

As Dealbreaker historians will recall, last March marked our first Dealbreaker NCAA Tournament Challenge. It was inspired by a financial services hack who made the public announcement that he planned to (anonymously) report any colleagues he caught filling out brackets and keeping tabs on their picks during business hours. At the time, we encouraged you all to enter as many pools as were available, making it impossible for him to keep up with the amount of people and their offenses he needed to rat out, and created one to do our part. Is this guy still on the loose? He very well might be but regardless: never forget. To that end, sign up for the Second Annual Dealbreaker NCAA Tournament Challenge today. If you need reason beyond being able to say you won the DBNCAATC, first place will receive dinner for him/herself plus some colleagues and/friends at Peter Luger's, an outing funded by us,* a Greenlight Capital messenger bag, a Pershing Square golf umbrella, a pair of Third Point-branded running sneakers, and an I Heart Dealbreaker button.** The pool will once again be managed by Dealbreaker Commenter and Friend NakedShort, who, along with myself, will answer any questions you might have, provide color if warranted (rip everyone’s brackets to shreds, call out the bottom 5 performers), etc. Sign up here now.*** So it is abundantly clear, if you do not want participants to know your real name, MAKE SURE TO FILL OUT SOMETHING ELSE IN THE NAME FIELDS. For example, if your ID is Godswork, rather than writing Lloyd B, enter first name: Gods, last name: work. To that end, if you don’t want people to see your email address, from the bracket page, click ‘options’ and then ‘hide email.’ If you feel it necessary, create an entirely new email account specifically for this challenge. Finally, don’t use HisHoliness as your ID because Alan Greenspan’s already called dibs. The pool password is: animalliar Dealbreaker NCAA Tournament Challenge [CBS Sports] *Last year we offered Wall Street North favorite Beamers Cafe, but the winner had "already seen all Beamers had to offer," and choose an alternative venue. This year, feel free to think outside the box. **If any other hedge funds, private equity firms, or banks would like to be represented via swag, feel free to get in touch! ***NakedShort says you have until Thursday morning to fill out a bracket but you should just get on this ASAP.