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Tambury OP t1_itk3jb6 wrote

Edit: here's a picture of pizza https://i.redd.it/v5bgqgkzzqv91.jpg

A friend of mine recently attempted a pizza-eating challenge at a local Italian restaurant. The store sells rectangular pizza that is 200mm (8in) wide, and is sold in linear increments of 250mm (10in) or 6 slices.

The store has a challenge of eating a 1 metre (39in) length of pizza - 24 slices.

  • If the pizza is consumed in under 45 minutes, the victor wins a t-shirt.
  • If the pizza could be eaten in under 30 minutes, the pizza would also be free.
  • The owner was feeling particularly generous (or confident) that day, and also offered a $100 cash prize for the 30 minute target.

The data was collected by recording the time measured by a restaurant-supplied stopwatch after each of the 24 pizza slices was fully consumed. Elapsed time was recorded in a spreadsheet app on a smartphone. The graph was plotted using Matplotlib in a Python Notebook. Energy contained within the pizza was approximated by back-calculating the nutritional information of a similarly topped fast-food pizza into a unit rate of energy per area, and then applying that to the area of the pizza.

After 14.5 slices, he admitted defeat and called it.

352

ASK_IF_IM_PENGUIN t1_itk53r3 wrote

Did your friend do any kind of preparation for this at all?

90

Tambury OP t1_itk59wi wrote

He skipped lunch, but that's about all. What he brought to the party was misplaced confidence!

345

Toncent t1_itkvo52 wrote

I think that skipping lunch might actually be a mistake because it makes your stomach shrink since it's empty - not that it would have made a difference here. As far as i know competitive eaters sometimes prepare for contests by chugging a bunch of water to expand the stomach beforehand.

86

_incredigirl_ t1_itl04y3 wrote

Yup! I am a person who looovvvves food but has a frustratingly small appetite. When I went to Vegas for the first time I did research beforehand on how to eat more food at the buffet lol. I spent about a week gearing up for it by eating many grazing meals through the day trying to train my stomach to expand. It was a lot of work just to ensure I got my best value at the buffet. 10/10 would do it again though

104

pxan t1_itlaofm wrote

Did you feel it helped substantially after all that work? Or was it more or less normal?

18

_incredigirl_ t1_itlgca9 wrote

It absolutely helped. I managed to clear four platefuls and 8 beers. At home I’m a one-meal-a-day gal.

Edit: the beers were those half sized plastic glasses and they were piss cheap American beer included in the cost of the buffet. Not buzz-worthy in the slightest.

33

Dr-Gooseman t1_itpocpv wrote

Wow, your dedication is impressive. Username checks out

1

Tur_K3y t1_itlia29 wrote

They eat lbs of grapes the night before

3

StereoBucket t1_itkjlcv wrote

I was imagining big round circular pizza, like god intended it to be.

This seems a lot more doable (but tbh I hate rectangular pizzas because it's not always disclosed in some restaurants)

23

Seth_Imperator t1_itkuerq wrote

You hate it because it is not always disclosed? Why the hate?

13

StereoBucket t1_itkuifa wrote

Less pizza. If I knew I was getting a worse deal, I might've just skipped on it.

2

Redpandaling t1_itkuxzj wrote

Wouldn't a square pizza actually be more pizza given the same diameter?

14

StereoBucket t1_itkvyh8 wrote

If it were square, but a rectangular pizza can surprise you with any width. I know I was surprised when a 12" was like 8 inch wide. I wasn't too amused.

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TrekForce t1_itnoak2 wrote

12” by 8” makes it approximately the same area as a circular 12” pizza

Edit: added “approximately”. I found a pizza place stating their 12” pizza was 96square inches. And then made my comment. Then i did the math. So either they have rectangular pizza or their 12“ isn’t 12”. Either way I did the math to double check and it’s definitely slightly smaller than a 12” round pizza which has 113.1sq inches.

2

StereoBucket t1_itnp3hd wrote

Round (12 diameter) : (12/2)^2 * pi =~ 113
Rectangle (12x8) : 12 * 8 = 96
It's smaller by about 15%

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TrekForce t1_itnpahm wrote

Just got my edit in about 30s before your reply… lol

2

StereoBucket t1_itnq3t8 wrote

lol, you also made me calculate again, like did I make an error or something, better check again.

Thinking about it now, 15% less is as if someone stole a whole slice (assuming 8 pizza slices which is pretty common) and then took a bite out of a 2nd slice.

1

matthoback t1_itlh726 wrote

Depends on how they are measuring the "diameter" of the square pizza. If they are measuring the diagonal of the square, it would be a smaller area than a circular pizza of the same diameter.

3

saganakist t1_itkxz8y wrote

Yes. The surface area of a square is d^2. The surface area of a circle is pi/4 times the surface area of that square (so, pi/4×d^2). Pi/4 is roughly 78%, so you would get 22% pizza less.

2

orrocos t1_itl9inb wrote

Mmmm, pizza pi.

2

Tarec88 t1_itnzkpf wrote

What a splendid pie, pizza-pizza pie

Every minute, every second, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy

1

Syrdon t1_itnh1ys wrote

That depends on what measurement you use for the size of the square pizza. Measuring corner to corner gets you a very different number than measuring edge length.

1

Neethis t1_itkvvgx wrote

There's a place near mine that sells an 18" square pizza for £2 less than a 20" round pizza.

1

TrekForce t1_itnotsi wrote

Good deal. The square one is slightly bigger for less money!

1

Kwetla t1_itl30eb wrote

Could you go for something less calorific and filling like Margherita? Or does it have to be that pizza?

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Tambury OP t1_itlflim wrote

Unfortunately it had to be the special of the restaurant.

For those playing at home: Tomato base, cheese, salami, bacon, parmesan and basil pesto

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Soulfighter56 t1_itlhib8 wrote

Oof the salami + bacon makes that much more difficult. Not that eating a sq meter of pizza isn’t already ridiculous lol

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wisconsinwookie78 t1_itln6w8 wrote

Unless I misread it, it's not a square meter. The pizza is 200mm wide and 250mm long increments. The competition was to eat four of these sections, which would have been a meter long total but still only 200mm wide.

6

Red__M_M t1_itlapsy wrote

15 seconds of research shows that a simple large pizza from dominos is about 2,000 calories. That makes this challenge equal to 10 pizzas. That seems wrong to me. Thoughts?

Edit: using 2,000 KCalories = 8,000 KJoules, we get 2.5 large dominos pizzas.

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Tambury OP t1_itld665 wrote

You need to convert from kilojoules to calories

11

Abbot_of_Cucany t1_itognvw wrote

When nutitionists talk about calories (sometime written as capital-C Calories), they're referring to kilocalories.

2000 food Calories = 2000 kcal ≈ 8000 kJ.

2

Professional_Bike647 t1_itk9na6 wrote

I cannot follow your math here. From your explanation it seems the whole pizza is only 200mm wide. Each "slice" is 250mm long - so to eat "one meter" one would have to eat either 5 slices (to measure by width) or 4 slices (to measure by length).

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Tambury OP t1_itkaq54 wrote

Apologies for the confusion, each 'single serve' of pizza is 250mm long cut 3-by-2 = 6 slices. The metre pizza is effectively 4 of these end-on-end (cooked as 2x500mm lengths due to oven limitations).

Hopefully below picture gives context. https://i.redd.it/v5bgqgkzzqv91.jpg

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MrDankky t1_itkwu14 wrote

Now that looks tasty, at least he saved you some

4

PuddleCrank t1_itl5h0c wrote

Now I understand it, but pizza is almost always defined by area not length. Had you multiplied by the width it would be much clearer how much pizza was consumed.

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orrocos t1_itl9br0 wrote

The whole pizza is about 0.00004943 acres. His friend consumed 0.00002965 acres of pizza.

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John_Vattic t1_itkac4n wrote

The 250mm increments are actually 6 slices, so each rectangular slice must only be about 4cm wide, 20cm long

4

stubob t1_itlg4jg wrote

8in * 39in = 312 in^(2) of pizza. Converting to a round pizza, that's just about 10in radius (10^(2) * 3.14) = 314 in^(2). So that's one 20 inch diameter pizza in 30 or 40 minutes. How often is the challenge completed? Doesn't seem that impossible.

8

Tambury OP t1_itlh22b wrote

Keep in mind the $100 was thrown in by the boss on the day who had obviously sized up the competitor and taken a punt that he wouldn't make it.

The owner did say that quite a few people actually complete it, but he has made a lot more money out of people attempting the challenge and failing than free pizza given away.

9

LongJohnny90 t1_itlrifg wrote

I've eaten an 18" diameter pizza before. I could 100% do this challenge if I prepared a little bit. And I'm not a competitive eater or anything crazy, just a guy who likes to test how much he can eat sometimes.

3

liam_____ t1_itlpf1d wrote

Yeah, that seems way too easy. Seems like just one family size pizza

2

Omnizoom t1_itmn6nv wrote

That’s not that much pizza , I could do that

2

ProfessorFull t1_itmmi9e wrote

Can you share the Code to generate this graph? Maybe dm if you want

1

Tambury OP t1_itnx41u wrote

Here you go! Apologies for the uncommented spaghetti code.

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

pizzasplit=pd.read_csv(r'D:\Downloads\pizza time splits - Sheet1.csv')

fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(8, 6),dpi=150)

xlim=45.5
ylim=1005

pizzasplit['Elapsed time']=pizzasplit['Elapsed time'].map(lambda x: pd.to_timedelta(x).seconds/60)

plt.scatter(pizzasplit['Elapsed time'],pizzasplit.Millimetres,color='b')
plt.plot(pizzasplit['Elapsed time'],pizzasplit.Millimetres,color='b')
ax.axhline(1000,color='r',xmax=45/xlim)
ax.axhline(604,color='b',xmin=36.91/xlim,xmax=45/xlim)
plt.text(22.5, 1000, '1 metre of pizza', fontsize=12, va='center', ha='center', backgroundcolor='w')
plt.text(37, 620, 'Defeat', fontsize=12, va='baseline', ha='left')

ax.axvline(30,color='g',ymax=1000/ylim)
ax.axvline(45,color='g',ymax=1000/ylim)
plt.text(29.5, 30, 'Time limit for free pizza + $100', fontsize=10, va='bottom', ha='center', rotation=90)
plt.text(44.5, 30, 'Time limit for commemorative t-shirt', fontsize=10, va='bottom', ha='center', rotation=90)

x=np.arange(0, 31, 1)
y=1000*x/30
plt.plot(x,y,color='g',linestyle='dashed',alpha=0.4)

x=np.arange(0, 46, 1)
y=1000*x/45

plt.plot(x,y,color='g',linestyle='dashed',alpha=0.4)

plt.xticks(np.arange(0, 46, step=5))
plt.yticks(np.arange(0, 1001, step=250))
plt.xlim(0,xlim)
plt.ylim(0,ylim)
ax.spines['right'].set_visible(False)
ax.spines['top'].set_visible(False)

ax.grid(linestyle="--", linewidth=0.5, color='.25', alpha=0.3, zorder=-10)

plt.xlabel('Elapsed time (minutes)')
plt.ylabel('Pizza consumed (mm)')

def make_patch_spines_invisible(ax):
    ax.set_frame_on(True)
    ax.patch.set_visible(False)
    for sp in ax.spines.values():
        sp.set_visible(False)

fig.subplots_adjust(right=0.75)

par1 = ax.twinx()
par2 = ax.twinx()

# Offset the right spine of par2.  The ticks and label have already been
# placed on the right by twinx above.
par1.spines["right"].set_position(("axes", 1.02))
par2.spines["right"].set_position(("axes", 1.15))
# Having been created by twinx, par2 has its frame off, so the line of its
# detached spine is invisible.  First, activate the frame but make the patch
# and spines invisible.
make_patch_spines_invisible(par2)
# Second, show the right spine.
par2.spines["right"].set_visible(True)
par1.spines['top'].set_visible(False)

par1.set_ylim(0, (ylim/1000)*max(pizzasplit.Slices))
par2.set_ylim(0, (ylim/1000)*max(pizzasplit.kJ))

par1.set_yticks(np.arange(0, 25, step=4))

par1.set_ylabel("Slices")
par2.set_ylabel("Energy (kJ)")

tkw = dict(size=4, width=1.5)
ax.tick_params(axis='y', **tkw)
par1.tick_params(axis='y', **tkw)
par2.tick_params(axis='y', **tkw)
ax.tick_params(axis='x', **tkw)

plt.tight_layout()

Data input CSV file below

kJ,Millimetres,Slices,Elapsed time
0,0,0,00:00:00
728.5,41.66666667,1,00:01:04
1457,83.33333333,2,00:02:08
2185.5,125,3,00:02:50
2914,166.6666667,4,00:03:38
3642.5,208.3333333,5,00:04:37
4371,250,6,00:05:15
5099.5,291.6666667,7,00:06:04
5828,333.3333333,8,00:07:03
6556.5,375,9,00:08:28
7285,416.6666667,10,00:10:08
8013.5,458.3333333,11,00:12:28
8742,500,12,00:15:41
9470.5,541.6666667,13,00:21:30
10199,583.3333333,14,00:28:52
10563.25,604.1666667,14.5,00:36:55
11656,666.6666667,16,
12384.5,708.3333333,17,
13113,750,18,
13841.5,791.6666667,19,
14570,833.3333333,20,
15298.5,875,21,
16027,916.6666667,22,
16755.5,958.3333333,23,
17484,1000,24,
2