Competitive eater ‘Max vs Food’ conquers food challenges at Manayunk bar

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In the field of competitive food eating, Max Stanford is known as “Max vs Food.”

The 37-year-old Londoner is visiting the U.S. ahead of his appearance at Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island on July 4. WHYY’s Jennifer Lynn caught up with him moments after he devoured back-to-back food challenges in record time at Bar Jawn, a popular Manayunk pub. He shared that he pretty much eats anything — at least in moderation — and avoids food that’s too spicy.

Jennifer Lynn: Describe your body type.

Max Stanford: Oh, I’m like 6’1”  and about 180 pounds, I think. I’d say I look like a runner, because I run a lot.

JL: Do you have to run a lot to deal with the challenges that you face with all these calories coming in?

MS: So I do about 17 or 18,000 steps a day, and I’m usually running about 10K. And then I go to the gym about two hours a day, just lifting weights and things like that. You have to really work it off. It’s calories in, calories out at the end of the day.

JL: What’s your origin story? How do you stumble into this kind of thing?

MS: Oh yeah, you do just stumble into it. You don’t ever decide and wake up in the morning, “I’m gonna be a competitive eater.” I think I did a restaurant challenge — I did quite well at it. And then I got entered into a contest, a charity, with other actual, real competitive eaters, and I met them, and I kind of got the bug for it. And then you just keep going. The first couple, I lost completely — like, it wasn’t very good. But if you like the enjoyment of kind of suffering, like you do with the food challenge — or when you’re running a lot, if you’re trying to train for a marathon — it’s quite a lot of suffering, to be honest. You get enjoyment out of that. You kind of want to test yourself and push yourself, and that’s where I’ve ended up, really.

JL: What are you thinking about while you’re eating? I know there are time constraints.

MS: Yeah, if it’s a contest, it’s like a very short amount of time — it’s like 10 minutes, eight minutes — and you’re just thinking about how I can get the food down as fast as I can, so what technique. And you’re just trying to push out of your mind anything to do with feeling full. But for a restaurant challenge like the one I did here, it’s all for the video and things like that. So I’m thinking, like, “Is this gonna sound good for the video? Is it gonna look good for the video?” and things like that.

JL: Does this mess up your body’s natural rhythm of knowing when it is full?

MS: No, I do kind of intermittent fasting. So I usually just eat one big meal a day, and then I kind of work up to being really hungry throughout the day, and I have that big meal, and I feel kind of satisfied after that. Before I came in here and did this return, I was very hungry. And before a contest, I would definitely be hungry.

JL: How do you recover?

MS: It’s a lot of water, a lot of active recovery. I think after a huge food challenge, I will sometimes slip into a bit of a food coma. I’ve had to, like, lay down in a dark room just to recover from them. But mainly it’s kind of walking, active recovery. And then, to be honest, sleeping quite soon afterwards, if I can. The next day is when you’re back on it — at the gym, steps and everything — to try and recover. And then I just won’t eat because, as I said, it’s calories in, calories out. So usually it’ll be about 24 hours before I’ll eat again.

JL: What did you eat tonight?

MS: So we’re at the Jawn Bar in Manayunk, Philadelphia, and I did both of their challenges. So a big eight-patty burger with a large portion of animal fries … so I did that in four minutes. And then I ate their Bar Jawn 1.0, which was a huge chicken cutlet sub, and then a huge plate of their fries with a lot of cheese and pepperoni on it.

JL: Do you like any of these foods?

MS: I do, actually. Yeah, they were pretty tasty. The burger — the smash patty burger here — was really good. That was outstanding. But the cheese — after a while, there was a lot of cheese on it. I think by the end, I could have had less cheese, to be honest.

JL: It wasn’t really enjoyable. It was a process.

MS: To be honest, I did find enjoyment out of it. It’s not a huge challenge for me. I know that sounds strange, but that’s not a huge challenge, like weight-wise, and I kind of go off weight. I felt fine throughout all of it. And what was nice is all the interaction of the staff and the people that were watching — that really made it fun. Everyone was cheering me on. You don’t often get that. That kind of motivates you and makes you feel good.

JL: How do you rank? I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with your name and status.

MS: There is a Major League Eating — those are the people that put on the Nathan’s famous hot dog contest — and I’ve qualified for that this year. So I’ll be going there, and I’m ranked 16th in the world, but that might go up. I’ve done very well in my kind of hot dog qualifier.

JL: Well, it’s “break a leg” if you’re going to be on stage — which you will be — so break a leg. But also, maybe don’t bite your tongue.

MS: No — yeah, exactly. I know — my fingers as well. People get worried that I’m biting my fingers because you’re eating it so quickly and you’re putting it in your mouth. And I have — I’ve bitten the finger once or twice, but nothing too bad.

JL: I was speaking with Max Stanford, aka “Max vs Food.” I spoke with him in Manayunk just after he polished off two food challenges in record time at Bar Jawn on Main Street. In less than eight minutes, he inhaled eight smash burger patties with Cooper cheese on a homemade burger bun with sauce and eight Fishtown Pickle Project habanero dill pickles, with a side of animal fries topped with melted cheese. And in less than 20 minutes, he finished off a chicken cutlet sandwich with massive amounts of cheese, topped with fried mozzarella cheese triangles and an entire pizza’s worth of cheese and pepperoni on top of thick-cut potato chips. At the end of the day, he won two T-shirts, didn’t have to pay for the food and soon he’ll have his picture on Bar Jawn’s Wall of Fame. This is WHYY’s “Morning Edition.”