Woman Dies in Cake-Eating Contest

Lamington: Beware that first bite. It's a doozy. (Image: Wikipedia)

“Let them eat cake,” Marie Antoinette crudely quipped according to legend when told her subjects couldn’t afford to eat bread. A story out of Australia suggests a 60-year-old woman would have been better off avoiding both.

Yahoo! News reports via Agence-France Presse that the woman died not from eating too much cake but from stuffing a “lamington into her mouth.” Lamingtons, the article explains, are a traditional Australian dessert consisting of a cube-shaped sponge cakes dipped in chocolate and covered in grated coconut. When the woman bit off more than she could chew — literally — she suffered a seizure.

The woman was rushed to hospital in the coastal town of Hervey Bay but later died, ABC reported.

She was a contestant in the Beach House Hotel’s annual Australia Day lamington and meat pie eating contest.

Police said the death was not suspicious and a report would be prepared for the coroner.