He has been hailed as 'God among eaters' - a human bottomless pit who, even by American eating standards, consumes an unbelievable amount of food.

Now Joey Chestnut has added another string to his bow by becoming world Pizza-eating champion.

The San Jose resident - a veteran in both the hamburger-guzzling and hot-dog-scoffing fields over the last year - completed the latest stage in his move towards binge-eating world domination by downing 45 slices of pizza in 10 minutes.

The 24-year-old beat 10 rivals to the pizza crown, including the previous record-holder, by utilising a technique he said was much-rehearsed.

After eating nothing but protein supplements for two days before Sunday's contest, he had coffee for breakfast on the big morning along with a gallon of water to stretch his stomach muscles

In the contest itself, he folded each pizza slice in half to make it easier to swallow and then jumped up and down to help the food go down. According to the New York Daily News, he did not chew any of the slices he swallowed.

Mr Chestnut's success gives him further bragging rights in the bizarre, tongue-in-cheek, American food faceoff hall-of-fame. Last month, he consumed 93 hamburgers in eight minutes to win a contest in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and he also won Coney Island’s July 4 hot-dog eating contest in 2007 by gulping down 66 in 12 minutes.

He admitted that the world of competitive eating was "as weird as it gets," but added: "It's fun. We make people smile."

His victory at Sunday's Famous Famiglia World Pizza Eating Championship, in Times Square, earned him prize money of $5,000 - but, arguably, incurred a hefty health price he may have to pay in future. The binge led to him consuming an estimated 11,700 calories and 450 grammes of fat.

"He is truly a god among eaters," one of the other contestants, Adam Gertler, said. "He could probably put an entire work boot in his mouth."

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