LAS CRUCES – Professional eaters screamed for more at the tenth annual Ice Cream Funday held at the City’s Health & Wellness Center downtown on Sunday.
More than 500 husky participants consumed gluttonous, competitive amounts of the frosty treats during the event, which continues to grow in popularity every year – along with the waistlines of the participants, said Gregorio de Gordo, co-coordinator of the event and father of reigning child-champion, Che.
Nine-year old Che Gordo taking a nap following his daily afternoon snack after a long, hard day at school
After shoveling the ice cream in 5-gallon buckets, learning about the dairy industry through propagandist videos, and taking tempting slurps of the chemically-processed treats before officially stuffing their faces, participants’ only problem was brain damage, Gordo said.
Just as participants had assumed their positions to begin eating, a group of people wearing white pants, some dressed as vegetables and waving signs, congregated around the main tent and began shouting.
The demonstration spokesperson, dressed as a stalk of broccoli and screaming into a megaphone, announced the reason behind the disruption of the fun family event.
“We, the hired staff of the Health & Wellness Center, were not informed of this event. We are outraged by the continued notion that ice cream is healthy and nutritious, pounded into your thick skulls by the organizations that profit the most from your demise. You are all doomed! Look at yourselves! Your children are obese!”
As most participants had ignored the ruckus and started shoveling ice cream into their mouths, the demonstrators only caught the attention of two comically overweight women resting on a bench after completing the preliminary overconsumption contest.
Vegetable demonstrators at the Ice Cream Funday downtown
Prior to being silenced and escorted away by event security, the vegetable demonstrators posted flyers and handbills around the vicinity containing information about the alleged nutritional myths of ice cream and dairy products.
One flyer, branded as “perverse” and “obscene” by local parents, documented the rapid change in pubescent development among young girls in the United States. The flyer claimed that 60 years ago the average girl began menstruating around age 16, but since the advent of refrigerators and the quadrupled annual consumption of dairy products the average age is now 11 1/2. In addition, girls as young as 8 are developing full breasts and pot bellies that never go away.
One onlooker who remained after the incident commented that “maybe the Health & Wellness Center should have a carrot eating contest next time” because “the only harm is that your skin turns a bit orange if you eat too much.”
“People could dress up in rabbit costumes and see who can chomp down the most carrots. It’s good for your teeth, too!”
Back at the competition, more than 300 ice cream sandwiches, donated by Shady Acres Dairy Farmers, were ultimately consumed by Che during the event’s popular ice cream-eating competition.
“If anybody gets sick, head for the bathroom or use one of the barf-buckets placed under the tables,” Gregorio quipped as competitors prepared to chow down.
Participants ages 4 through adults all left with brown ooze dripping down their chins and violent sessions of mucus-induced throat clearing.
“It was nothing,” said 9-year-old Che after taking first place in his age group. “I didn’t even get a brain freeze or get throw-up come back up in my mouth.”
Although Che claimed he didn’t practice for the competition, his father chimed in, “He eats like that at home all the time!”
Gregorio said he and his family, of El Paso, visited the Health & Wellness Center for the first time two weeks ago while Che was recovering from dual-knee surgeries caused by hauling around so much weight on a small frame, when they learned of Ice Cream Funday. “This is our second time here,” Gregorio said. “We’ll definitely be back again next year.”
After downing five ice cream cakes, 12-year-old Grandita Gordo walked away with a coupon for a free double cheese pizza and a large tshirt with “Ice Cream Queen” printed on the front. “After the third (ice cream sandwich), I almost felt like I was going to puke, but I kept going like a junkie wants crack,” she said. Grandita agreed she will probably wait a few minutes before picking up her free pizza, but that didn’t stop her from grabbing yet another quart cup of ice cream following the competition.
Her third time attending Ice Cream Funday, Grandita said, “I’ve always done the ice cream sandwich contest, but this is the first time I stuffed my gaping maw enough to win a prize.”
Her father and event coordinator, Gregorio, on the other hand, is a veteran champion at the competition. Holding the record for the most frozen desserts eaten in the adult challenge, he kept his first-place title this year by downing seventeen ice cream sandwiches.
“I just try not to think about it,” he said. “It’s a challenge to get the human body to process that much saturated fat and sugar in one sitting. I spend way too much time on the toilet the next day, but it’s worth it because it’s fun.”
Making the event a family affair, even Grandita’s mother, Grandeña, got in on the action, eating the same number of frozen bars of sweetened animal fat as her daughter. “I couldn’t even look at Gregorio while we were competing,” she said of her husband. “He looked like such a pig and I would just start laughing.”
“We’re making this a family tradition,” Grandeña said.
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