Our News is Written in Stone™
Monday, July 21, 2008
Published: July 19, 2008 09:44 am
Competitive eating is a national embarrassment
Phil Riddle, Democrat Editor
Here’s one reason the rest of the world hates us.Only in America are there professional eaters.They produce nothing. Sell nothing. Manufacture nothing. They eat massive, unhealthy amounts of food for a living.Everyone has heard of or seen the July 4 hot dog eating contest at Coney Island. This year’s edition was won by Joey Chestnut who downed 64 hot dogs in less than 15 minutes.That’s eight supermarket packages of franks with buns.You know the guy who comes to the company picnic and keeps going back through the line. You know the guy. He’s already got a season ticket at the angioplasty clinic. He might eat five or six dogs because he thinks no one is keeping count.Chestnut ate more than 10 times that amount. Sixty-four hot dogs would feed a family of four eight meals, allowing two dogs per family member at each meal.While other parts of the world see people fighting daily for sustenance, we televise and embrace gluttony. On ESPN, no less. Not only are we putting this over the airwaves, we’re turning it into a sport.As a trophy to said gluttony, Chestnut was awarded a mustard yellow championship belt and a check for $10,000.He got $10,000 for eating enough food to feed entire third-world villages in less time than it takes for your morning shower.Besides the July 4 competition, there is a pro tour — Major League Eating — which is part of a larger organization, the International Federation of Competitive Eating.Question: How do you decide to take competitive eating as a career path.Are you bad at math? Maybe communication is not a strong suit. No business school will take you. You probably won’t be a draft pick in the NFL, NBA or MLB.“Look here son. Your SAT scores say the best job you can hope for is sticking labels on pickle jars. We’ve got to figure out what you’re good at, besides emptying the refrigerator ... wait a minute.”And a professional eater is born.Besides being a national embarrassment, doctors say contests like the hot dog eating event are bad for contestants.Duh!No kidding, Doc? Is it really unhealthy to eat 64 processed meat dogs laden with calories, salt and cholesterol? I would think even competitive eaters know that.Also, with the quantities consumed, competitors probably suffered nausea, bloat, headache and possibly high blood pressure for days until digestion was complete.I wonder if there’s a record for taking Alka-Seltzer.Want more reasons to be embarrassed.OK.There are regular tour events including next weekend’s Cherokee Casino World BBQ Eating Championship, last week’s World Rib Eating Championship and all the qualifying events to the get world class eaters to the championship tables.Like the professional golf qualifiers to get to the U.S. Open. However, I’d be willing to bet you’ve never seen Tiger Woods throwing up from playing too much golf. John Daly, maybe.The IFOCE sanctions records for all sorts of grub.I’ll bet you didn’t know the most pickled beef tongue consumed in a 12-minute sitting is three pounds, three ounces by a gentleman named Dominic Cardo.What would you expect the record for eating chicken wings might be. If you said 167 wings in 32 minutes, you’d be right.There are also records on file for eating buffet food, cheesecake, fruitcake, hamburgers, matzo balls, oysters and watermelon.But the most disgusting of the records belong to Donald Lerman and Oleg Zhornitsky. Lerman ate seven quarter-pound sticks of butter in five minutes, while Zhornitsky inhaled four 32-ounce jars of mayonnaise in eight minutes.I don’t know how they felt after their record-setting performances, but I’m feeling a little queasy.
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