A new record was set this year in Nathan’s Famous July Fourth International Hot Dog Eating contest. A Japanese man named Takeru “Koby” Kobayashi managed to cram 53.75 hot dogs down his gullet in 12 minutes. That’s 4.5 dogs per minute! And, if you were wondering, yes, that includes the buns!
CalorieLab was kind enough to figure out the Nutrition Facts for this massive meal (short by a quarter dog, for reasons unknown):
16,532 calories and 2.3 pounds of fat. Mmmmm.
If that’s not enough to make your head spin (and stomach turn), consider this: Koby weighs in at a mere 144 pounds, and this was his sixth consecutive world championship. How does he do it? Moreover, why? There is no cash prize, just a huge trophy and gawdy belt. The official Nathan’s Famous website describes their contest participants “among the finest athletes in the world.†I don’t know about that, but it is a tremendous physical feat / freak show, and Koby is certainly getting more than his 15 minutes of fame.
Back in the 1960’s the world record was “only†18.5 hot dogs. In 1996, it was set at 24.5 dogs. This year’s winner ate more than double that amount. I really don’t understand how these competitive eaters are capable of this kind of [dare I say] evolution.
Kobayashi says he trains by eating cabbage and drinking a lot of water. Even with extensive preparation, wouldn’t the sheer weight of the contest food rupture any stomach? Remember, we’re taking about 12 pounds of meat in 12 minutes! How are their digestive systems able to handle that much food at once? How do they avoid gaining significant weight? Or do these competitors –you know– throw it all up afterward? Either way, it just seems so incredibly dangerous.
Now, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m late for my skydiving session. *Kidding*
For a list of other competitive eating records, check out the IFOCE.com website. Take notice that 100-pound Sonya Thomas graces the list a whopping 23 times.
{ 6 comments }
That’s totally disgusting.
Check out these records! http://www.ifoce.com/records.php
Grosssss! I want to throw up just thinking about it.
I had a feeling that this story might affect people the same way it did me. Sorry. Besides the sheer gross-out factor, it’s also pretty shameful when you think about how there are people starving in this world. And comparably they get very little attention, very few hot dogs.
On the bright side (if you have a dark sense of humor), competitve eating does have a Darwin Award winner or two. In bar in the town of Volgodonsk, Russia decided to have a vodka drinking contest in 2003. Can anyone guess what happened? Yep, you nailed it! The guy drank one and half liters of vodka in less than 40 minutes and dropped dead 20 minutes later. Runners-up were rushed to the hospital and five had to stay in the ICU ward. Yikes! Hopefully people learned their lesson.
In another eating contest in the 1990s, they had the bright idea to drink raw eggs. Guess what happened? Well, almost… The amount of cholesterol in the eggs caused the winner to suffer a stroke. I don’t know the details of that event but rumor has it that the guy survived and fully recovered. Fortunately, the International Federation of Competitive Eating expunged the “raw egg” record from its books and that item is not legal in any IFOCE contests.
Can you imagine the dump that guy took? I mean his lg. and sm. intestine must be freaking GREASED!! He better have a really good plunger!
To each his own is what I say. I can understand that the sheer volume and gross factor is what attracts people to it, but I don’t think it’s right for some (ahem Kelly) to wish or suggest death just because someone can eat 53 hot dogs.
Oh dear. Nothing could be farther from the truth, Diana. As stated earlier I’m very glad to hear that the most dangerous competitions are no longer taking place. I understand that we don’t share a sense of humor. That much is crystal clear. It’s fine. But don’t accuse me of wishing death on anyone. That’s just not right. There is already much anger and misfortune in this world; it’s certainly not necessary to seek it out and imagine it here, of all places! Anyway, I hope that you discover something today that makes you smile.
Comments on this entry are closed.