Dean's Blog

Sometimes the general oddities of life seem to enthrall me. For example, a few years ago I happened to be grazing the channels on television and came across a rather interesting documentary on the world of competitive eating. That’s right, there is an organization that considers eating a sport, and has coined the term ‘gurgitators’ to describe the athletes of the sport, and unlike the images that likely come to mind at this point, all of the top gurgitators are very skinny.

You see, there is this organization known as the International Federation Of Competitive Eating, IFOCE which organizes and administers comptetitive eating challenges all over the the world, but mostly in the United States. Some of the most famous would be the Nathans Hot Dog eating contest on Coney Island, and the Krystal Burger Square Off in Chattanooga, Tennessee. How many hot dogs you ask? Try 53.5 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes by Takeru Kobayashi, which comes out to 12840 calories and 802 grams of fat.

But it doesn’t end there, as all kinds of food items have been sent to the front lines of competition. Try 11 lbs of cheesecake in 9 minutes, 5.75 pounds of battered asparagus in 10 minutes, 65 hard boiled eggs in just under 7 minutes, and 4 1/4 pounds of fruitcake in 10 minutes. It doesn’t stop there, lobster, oysters, jambalaya, pancakes, pickles, cow brains (17.5 pounds), pasta, sausage, spam and a very long stomach stretching list more.

There is money to be won, records to break, and all the excitement of two handed water dipped gorging you can imagine. You aren’t allowed to purge (barf) during the competition, but there isn’t anything in the rules that state that stuff can’t come out of your nose while competing. 5.5 pounds of buffet food (in 12 minutes) anyone?