It is a submission to the health police that is sure to disgruntle pie-eating enthusiasts the globe over.

For years, competitors at the World Pie Eating Championship in Wigan – widely regarded as home of the esteemed dish - have shown their eating prowess by gobbling as many meat and potato pies as they could manage in three minutes.

But this year, in a break from tradition, the champion scoffers will compete to eat just a single pie in the fastest time possible.

And for the first time there will be a meat-free option available, giving health-conscious vegetarians the chance to show off their own gorging abilities.

Organisers of the annual event say the changes have been made in light of the Government’s healthy eating advice and anti-obesity campaign.

"I realise it may be controversial, but this is the way forward for pie-eating at this level," said Tony Callaghan, owner of Harry’s Bar, where the competition will be staged.

"We will be inviting challengers to consume relatively small quantities - just one regulation pie - in as short a time as possible. It will make for an exciting sporting spectacle, whilst also doffing its cap to Government-inspired guidelines on obesity."

While the radical changes have been welcomed by some, dedicated pie-lovers have blasted the new rules as riding roughshod over the traditions of the competition, lamenting that the event will become a sprint instead of a marathon.

Other disgruntled purists insist that a pie without meat is simply not worth the pastry it's cooked with.

"They’ve taken things too far this year - pies are supposed to be meat and potato and anything else just isn’t normal," said Dave Smyth, 48, a painter from Hindley, who won the first contest in 1992 when he ate an impressive four pies in three minutes.

"This contest has always been about savouring as many pies as possible over a three-minute period, not sprinting through a few mouthfuls of a single pie," Mr Smyth told the Manchester Evening News.

"I intend to lobby the organising committee and I'm not going to rest until I've got answers."

But the Vegetarian Society, which has been campaigning for the inclusion of a meat-free option, welcomed the changes. A spokeswoman said: "There are more than 3 million vegetarians in the UK and we shouldn’t be discriminating against them.

"Also, pies are traditionally full of fat and gristle and we need to be doing more to encourage people to eat healthily.

The spokeswoman said that the meat-free option was likely to include carrots, root vegetables, peas and a vegetarian gravy to give the pie a similar consistency to the meat version.

"This is a small step for vegetarians but a big leap for the nation’s health," she added.

The precise science of the sport dictates that the traditional meat and potato pie should have a diameter of 12cm (4.7 inches) and a depth of 3.5cm (1.4 inches), and a pie wall angle from base to top of between zero and 15 degrees.

The vegetarian option, because of its more glutinous content, will be slightly smaller, measuring 10cm by 3cm. It is not known how many vegetarians, if any, have entered the competition.

Last year’s winner Anthony "The Anaconda" Danson, a weight-trainer from Pemberton, Lancashire, managed to eat seven pies in three minutes, setting a new record.

Wiganers have long been known as "the pie-eaters", although the nickname is not thought to refer to their love of pies. Instead, it is aid to date from the 1926 General Strike when Wigan miners were starved back to work and forced to eat "humble pie".

The World Pie Eating Championships will be held on December 13.

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