I’m a female competitive eater – I finished 100 plates of sushi in about a half hour and have won $30k for chowing down
A FEMALE professional eater is flaunting her ability to eat pounds and pounds of food is just minutes.
Raina Huang, 29, can wolf down 100 plates of sushi in just over a half hour and a whopping 17 pounds of steak of steak in in an hour and 10 minutes.
Raina has spent the last 10 years traveling the world taking on some of the toughest food challenges.
Her unique line of work not only nets her free food, but she’s earned her $30,000 through competitions.
In Raina’s most recent win in Los Angeles, where she lives, she devoured almost 100 dumplings in 10 minutes, coming in first place and taking home a $1,000 prize.
On a recent trip to Taiwan, Japan, and Vietnam, Raina took part in a challenge in which she had to consume the equivalent amount of sushi to her 5-foot-2 height — which equated to 108 plates’ worth.
She completed it in just 35 minutes and ate an extra six plates for good measure.
Petite Raina documents her challenges on TikTok and YouTube, where she has a combined 4.3 million followers.
“I’ve just eaten a lot and fast all my life and it’s become easy,” she said.
“I think it stems from playing video games — I just wanted to eat fast so I could go back to my game.
“I got to restaurants pretty much every day and when I’m on tour, I do challenges every single day.
“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, but it took a lot of grinding.”
Raina had tried all sorts of jobs, including online gaming and singing, before she fell into the competitive eating world 10 years ago.
“I tried to be a part of the entertainment industry as I wanted to be an actor or singer but that’s very saturated,” she said.
“I also tried streaming games on Twitch.
“But it was while I was working as a chef that one day someone told me to do a food challenge and I was able to eat a four-pound burrito in six minutes.
“Someone recorded me doing it, and the video did so much better than anything had ever done.
“I thought: ‘Oh my God, people like to watch me eat.’
“I had no clue places would start giving me food for free because I could eat a lot.
“After five months of doing YouTube constantly, I took a leap of faith and decided to go for it full-time.
“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.”
Raina’s favorite cuisine to eat in bulk is Mexican because of how fast she can wolf it down, and she plans to take part in more Mexican-themed competitions over the festive season.
“Burrito challenges are great as they are so soft so I think I can complete them quite quickly,” she said.
Also easy for her are dumplings and ramen.
“I thought I was good at Asian food but maybe I’m not as good as I thought,” she added.
“The competitions just depend on what’s in season.
“As it’s the holiday season at the moment, a lot of places are promoting right now.
“There’s a few tamale eating competitions at the moment over Christmas.”
But Raina isn’t always able to complete every challenge and recently met her match in Taiwan.
“I was there for 10 days, I had 7.9 pounds of Yakisoba and 17 pounds of steak, which I completed,” she said.
“But there were these Chinese hamburgers with very thick dough that I actually failed.
“I had to try and eat 15 of them, but anything with a lot of carbs I find very difficult as it can be so heavy and hard to swallow.
“As it had so much bread, it was very hard to swallow no matter how much water I had.
“That’s something I’ve noticed in the differences between the competitive eaters in Asia and America.
“Asian competitive eaters like to sit for a long time, whereas Americans like to get it down fast.
“I’m used to the American way, so drinking water helps to lubricate the food so you can get it down really fast.
“I met a lot of Asian competitive eaters, and before they’d had a sip of food they’d already had 4.4 pounds of food, as they were taking it slower.”
Other tricky foods for her are pizza, fish, pancakes, and waffles.
Raina hopes to one day travel to the UK to take on some British classics in the competitive eating world.
Some of Raina's competition wins
- Ate most dumplings in 10 minutes: $1,000
- 108 wings in wing-eating content: $500
- 28 hot dogs in 10 minutes: $1,000
- Finished a 10 pound pizza in team contest: $500