Father-son’s eating challenge videos garner global attention

Growing up, Sabari watched his father, Porchezhiyan, eating a huge quantity of food in a short amount of time. The young boy from Chinnasalem, in Kallakurichi, was fascinated by his father’s large appetite. While studying medicine in Ukraine, the youngster came across many international competitive eaters and their popular ‘eating challenge’ videos. Watching them on YouTube, Sabari remembered the talent back at home — his father. 

He decided to start something similar and shared the idea of starting a YouTube channel with his father. After completing his studies, Sabari returned home and started a YouTube channel called Saapattu Raman. In a couple of months, the channel got nearly four lakh subscribers.

“I love watching various eating challenge videos on YouTube and every time, I think why don’t I come up with something like that. Food is something everyone can relate to and I’ve grown up watching my father eating huge portions of food every day. He eats 1.5 to 2 kgs of food daily! Also, if you see, there are no Tamil YouTubers who are doing eating challenge videos. I thought this would be a great platform and launched the channel,” he says.

The duo uploads an eating challenge video on their YouTube channel every Friday. Sometimes, Porchezhiyan alone will feature in the videos.

A few of their record-breaking videos that went viral include 50 country chicken egg omelette eating challenge (in less than 18 minutes), nine plates of white rice and fish curry eating challenge (in 18 minutes) and 572 g raw broccoli eating challenge (in 5.30 minutes). So, how does the duo take care of their health? “I think it is in our genes. My father, who is now 57-years-old, has always been eating a huge amount of food and never complained of any uneasiness. 

He is an Ayush doctor, who specialises in electro homeopathy. Luckily, nobody in the family has any lifestyle-related ailments. The food that we consume is cooked by my mother. She prepares it with vegetables, rice and other grains that are grown in our own farms. We use mappillai samba rice, ottadayan rice and kavuni rice for cooking. Everything that we eat is organic. That’s another reason why we stay healthy after consuming a high-calorie diet,” Sabari tells DT Next.

Though they get a lot of positive comments and suggestions, many are against their ‘eating challenge’. “We get mixed responses from our followers. Many keep asking why wasting money and food when thousands of people suffer in our country. Well, we don’t need to publicise everything we do. Having said that, we give food and other donations to several orphanages and old-age homes in and around Kallakurichi,” he remarks.