What's up with competitive eating?

Josh Clark. With me as always this Charles W. Chuck Chucker's chuckle Head, Chuck Chuck Chuck Chuck Chuck Bryant. You can just call me Kobayashi. No, okay, good, that was a great set of Chuck. Let's talk about a competitive eating go. Wow, you had something better than that plan out, didn't, you know? Not really? Okay against talking about like, oh I'm awful. I remember in high school, back when I was a younger man. Uh, there was this place. Do

you remember Buffalo is the chain? I don't think it's around anymore. I think I think the Wings Cafe or whatever. Yeah. Um, they used to have like a like an ongoing um hall of Fame or whatever wall of fame. It was a plaque with people's names on it. They would like, eat an X number of wings. And I had a couple of friends on there at the one by Sprayberry High School, Mary Georgia. I don't think fifty or more gute on there. Did you got Sprayberry? Yeah? I went Sprayberry.

Did not know that? Did you know anybody who went to Sprayberry besides Travis Tritt and some guy who was on some reality show? No, no, I did not realize that they went there. Yeah, I've got let me see. I think you had a cup. Chris Kardaki went to my school. He was an NFL punter, and um, where'd you go? I went to read Ann oh Over in the cab. Yeah. Yeah. Is it possible that I'm the most famous person that went to my high school? Holy cow? How cool would that be? Chuck, Well, Chuck, what's the

most you've ever eaten? I have no idea. It had to be some like Chinese food buffet or something. I'll just say, yeah, yeah, those things will kill you, especially the big ones. I have like seven buffets in one restaurant. One of my friends had to be helped out. I had to help him out with hi hippie justin Okay, yeah close? Really wow, yeah that was close. Yeah. I I don't do the buffet thing anymore. That's I learned that from my dad, you know, how to master the

buffet when I was very young. But I get your money's worth. Yeah, yeah, and I have since learned. You know, my dad was busy gorging himself. My mom was stuffing things in her purse. This is like how things were in the seventies when he went to a buffet. Yeah. Well, buffets have come a long way since then. And why does anyone go to any cafeteria style restaurant, especially there's usually a buffet across the street. It's like all you can eat or very tiny portions for the same exact price.

I'll tell you where I'm going, buddy. I'm going to the place where people with oxygen tanks and rascals who are sweating grease are coming out of the doors. That's where I'm going, because that's where you're going to get your money for agreed, So buffet's. We've both eaten too much at buffet's. That's our setup. Really Yeah, but no more let's let's talk about competitive eating. There's nothing competitive about a buffet except vying for the white meat. That's

the only competitive that's your thing. Yeah. Yeah, So there are people out there, as as you may have guessed by now, um, that eat competitively. A lot of people. You've got rugby, you have highly poker, dolphin glass owing, and competitive eating. Yeah, those are pretty much the top four or five sports. I don't remember how many I just said. Okay, yeah, yeah, I would agree. I can't

think of any other sport that would that would top those. No, I would put highlight in the first position, though, would you really? So you should? I guess we should just go ahead and say that there is an actual federation called the International Federation of Competitive Eating. It's since been retitled Major League Eating. Did you know that there? We'reization really I think they still go by uh the I f O c E, but they also go by competitive

Major League Eating. Yeah, this sounds more official the other way. I like. I like the first one more two. Just gonna go ahead and say it. Did you know it was founded by Nathan's Hot Dogs publicity wing. It does not surprise me. I didn't know that though the rumor has it that the Nathan's, the famous Nathan's hot dog stand in Coney Island, started uh competitive eating in nineteen sixteen with four friends who sat down together and challenge each other too too out eat hot dogs two and

whoever ate the most was the better patriot. So if you can eat more hot dogs, you are better patriot. Yeah. It was I think Fourth of July right that they did it. I think so. And then they I think one of like thirteen hot dogs and he was the better patriot. And since then it's been a thing, which is it's peanuts, it's measily. Can I stop doing an accent now? No, I'd like you to continue for the rest of the podcast. How wouldn't that be great? Yeah?

Are you going to? No? It sounds very Coney Island show, very Coney Island nineteen sixteen. I mean you nailed it. Um. So, I think Nathan's continued this for all Fourth of July's after that, or probably the vast majority. Probably not during World War two. Nobody did anything during World War Two. The thing is is people were still just kind of um eating twelve thirteen, sixteen hot dogs, right, which is nothing compared to what they do now, right, And there

were there were other eating competitions. There was this one between a guy who played outfield I think for the Yankees, Ping Body, that was an Italian American and Uh in nineteen nineteen, he engaged in a spaghetti eating contest with an Ostrich. I challenge you Ostrich, yep, the but I think that's exactly how it went down too, and the Ostrich just is like, what's spaghetti? The Ostrich just ate

whatever was based in front of it, eleven bowls. Apparently, Uh, Ping Body was declared the winner because apparently the Ostrich either fainted or died on its eleven pole, depending on who you ask, the proud tradition of the Yankees exactly the dark and Ping just probably ate the the unconscious Ostrich and then smoked five cigars right afterwards, exactly. And then did you gotten a drinking contest with Babe Ruth? That's probably how that went down. Yeah. So uh, there's

also painting contests, a staple of country fairs. Yeah, back in the day. I think they in the article at Leasta said that that was more along the lines of, hey, let's like tie your hands behind your back, not necessarily see how many pies you can eat. It was a little more I wouldn't say challenging, but I think the

fund yeah more gross chuck. We have been organically and um irresistibly led right back to standby man, you're going to say that, how could I not the great great story that young Will Wheaton says about the that he makes up as the young writer the painting contest, large wide load, fantastic scene. Um. But yes, so that was a county fair pie eating contest. It's just kind of goes willy nilly all over the place. Anybody who wanted to get fifty people or so to their um store

will the eating contest. Well. In the nineties, as we were saying, I think, um, George and Richard Shay, who I think may still run publicity for Nathan's Famous Hotdogs, took this old concept and really drummed it up. They took it to the next level and then some and they were answered by some people who have dedicated their

free time at least to competitive eating. Like I don't know exactly how this symbiotic relationship came about, but these guys put the call out there and some people answered it. What are they called chuck gurgitators, gurgetators. That's right, it is. It is gross because you slap ran there and you're talking about someone who pukes, and we'll we'll get into the thing, and I know I can't wait, just to

warn people it is coming. Yeah. Um, so since the since the late nineties, actually since the century, because I think for a few years it took a few years to catch on and people were still just really phoning it in eating thirteen fifteen eighteen hot dogs, and then, like I think, starting in about two thousand two, a little fella, I think a hundred and sixty pounds out of Japan named Takaro Kobayashi, which is why you said,

called me Kobayashi. Not to be confused, um with the attorney in um the usual suspects it Okay, die hard, I'm an idiot, die Hard Kobayashi, the usual sub suspects. Yeah, that's not to me. Yeah, not tell me, tower's what I was thinking. Yeah, no, I'm talking Kobayashi and the usual suspect. I feel like a heel now. It's because I'm a movie guy. Do you want us to edit this part out? Okay, thanks for leaving it in chuck, I'll be wrong. Um. So, Takiro Kobayashi hits the scene

hundred sixty pounds sucking red hair. Uh can eat fifty sixty hot dogs in like eight minutes, ten minutes. So all of a sudden, all these guys who were you know, just like, oh, check me out a eighteen hot dogs in ten minutes. These they're they're weeping at home and their garages. That's it. They're done, they're over, their careers are done. Kobayashi rocks the competitive eating world, and he

attracts more and more people big time. He owned it for many years, he did and actually lost only because of a jaw injury. Really yeah, we'll get to that in a few okay, um but so yeah, he's he's at the Nathan's hot Dog Fourth of July hot Dog eating contest, and that's the biggest one. There's all kinds

of eating contests, which we'll get into that too. We keep teasing, we're not going to get around to any of this, but the Nathan's hot Dog Contest is is easily the most famous, and I mean it's the world series of the Super Bowl of Yeah, it's broadcast on ESPN. Have you actually actually watched it in full? I wish you wouldn't ask me that, because as I did a few years ago. I don't remember why I was in front of my television at the time, but I did,

and uh, it was disgusting. It was really really gross and hard to watch. You know. I've I've read um and actually I've got to source this openly and honestly,

I've read this on cracked dot com. But there's this stuff called side food and the stuff that comes out the sides of the mouth that's kind of half chewed, and man, I guess just through physics, you know, yea to two objects can't occupy the same space at the same time, so I think the rest of that law ends with so some of that stuff comes out of your mouth kind of chewed up the sides of your mouth, I guess. Um. So yeah, I understand it is very gross. Yeah,

I had a hard time watching it. Yeah, you didn't make it through the whole thing. No. I watched it because I wanted to see if it was the big matchup between Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut. Okay, so we've arrived at Joey Chestnuts that that must have been two thousand seven, Buddy, I think it was the first year he won, which

was two thousand seven. That was the year that kobey Ashi had a jaw injury that supposedly field um And apparently during the competition, Chestnut beat Kobayashi sixty six to sixty three, and kobey Ashi says, no, no, I had a jaw injury, and Chestnut says, eat it, buddy, I beat you and I'm now the champion in Kobe. She said, don't get in some water and I will eat it. Yeah, because that is a technique that many competitive eaters used.

It is and um actually almost all of them. Ed Grabanowski, the grabster who wrote this article and actually for this article went to uh An eating constant in Buffalo. Yeah, he describes it clearly. He didn't read the last two pages, didn't um. He describes this visit to it, and you know several people are there. Sonya Thomas, the black widow, hundred pounds dude, hundred pounds of Korean ancestry ancestry fury.

Can we just go ahead and mention a couple of records she holds because she is littered over the I fo c E Record Book. Sonya Thomas has eaten thirty five brought worse in ten minutes. She's eating a hundred and sixty seven chicken wings in thirty two minutes. She's eating four pounds of fruit cake in ten minutes. Can I say my favorite? Yeah, She's eaten eight point three one pounds of armored Vienna sausage in ten minutes. Wow, all right, and I'm gonna go with this final one

unless you have one. She ate forty four forty four main lobsters, dude in twelve minutes. And that's the meat obviously only, which is that was eleven pounds of meat. She also you left out probably your most famous one, which is that? So have you seen cool hand Luke Well, yeah, you know the hard boiled egg eating cont so cool hand Luke Tift. She ate sixty five hard boiled eggs in six minutes for seconds. Hundred pounds of woman. Yeah,

stuff in this food down to throat. Yeah. She eats um once a day, one large meal a day, usually from a buffet. In the article, she's shown helping herself to some sushi um and uh, yeah, she's a hundred pounds. She's she lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and she dominates right now as of what's the date today, Chuck, the thirty one of July. She is number six in the i fo c E rankings. I bet she's the top female

in g Yes. I imagine she destroys the female competition. Yeah, it's good for her, right and again, like you said, she's a hundred pounds, she's it's awesome and she goes by the black Widow. So it doesn't get cooler than that right now, not any core. Um. We talked about Kobe Ashi, who for I think from like two thousand to two thousand and seven held all the major records. Uh, he just could not be stopped and so competitive eating.

He's from Japan. The Japanese just dominated competitive eating until two thousand seven Joey Chestnut shows up. Joey, this guy has put the smack down on absolutely everybody everyone. He hold some crazy, crazy records. Uh. He ate a hundred and three Crystal Burghers, which, for our friends in the Northeast are the same thing as White Castle pretty much sliders, uh and I don't know what they would be out west, any clue? Are Jack in the Box small and square.

Uh no, okay, I don't remember. I don't actually remember ever seeing any little sliders out there. I'm sure they have them though. Uh. If you go onto the I f o C website, click on Joey Chestnut if you dare everything that comes up. He's just got this laundry list records that he holds. Right, he's a champion eater for sure, and he has Kobe Ashi's but uh in oh seven oh eight and then just a month or like not even a month ago and O nine Yeah, instead of new world record, right that jaw injury. Um

excuse only goes so far. Sixty eight hot dogs is what Joey Chestnut eight this year and that's including buns. And let's talk about some of these people do this. Um, you talked about dunking and water. Almost everybody uses mostly water, but you're allowed to with any dip your food in a drinks. It makes it you would get so full everywhere. Um, have a Roman incident? Is that what you mean? That's what the FOC calls it. That's right, Yeah, they call

it a Roman incident. If you vomit, and I believe if you vomit on the table or on the food, then you're disqualified. But um, apparently, from what I understand, if you puke uh and it doesn't touch the table or whatever, um, you can proceed, I guess. But at the same time, like they probably count that as eaten. I think in two thousand two, Kobayashi um had a little controversy where he vomited some up and it was

counted as eating. He held most of it back though, right, Yeah, he put his hand and see that's what's so gross, man. And these guys and ladies are eating the stuff and they're just stuffing in in their mouths and you can see this like look on their face like they're gonna die. And all of a sudden you see one of them like yeah, and they put their hands over their mouth, and you know what's happening. Kind of tell you a little story, yeah, God, a little little story from my path.

Let so imagine Josh Clark age one on July. Okay, sleep in a in a field behind a home depot. That would have been U. I'm in Athens, Georgia, go dogs, right, uh, And I'm at what was the I guess the Half Moon Pub. Yeah, it was downstairs. Yeah, I had friends at work there downstairs from the Athens Coffee House, I think so it was. Um, So, I'm down at half Moon hanging out with some friends and I see a guy who i'm I have I'm mutual friends with or we have mutual friends. I'm sorry, but he and I

don't really like each other. He comes over and he goes, hey, here, it's your birthday. Let me buy you a shot. I'm like, sure, no problem. So he buys me a shot of two fifty two. What is that? Baccardi? Are you ready? It's a shot of bacartie and wild turkey one oh one. There is no reason for the shot to exist in the universe, right, So the guy buys me the shot. I take it, you know, not wanting to to look

like a coward and already kind of ripped. Um. I take the shot and I feel it immediately start to come back up, and not just that, everything everything start to come back up. I throw my hand in front of my mouth and stop it just before it comes back up, wipe my mouth, put the shot glass down, look the guy in the eye and say thanks for the shot, and turn around and walk away. Because he was trying to get me the puke, right, I showed him. That's what happened in my head. You wanna hear what

happened in reality. The guy buys me the shot, I take it, throw my hand up to my hand, to my mouth, puke everywhere, including the bar, on the guy, on myself, put the shot glass down, look him in the eye and say thanks for the shot, and turned around and walked away. You're kidding, and you were disqualified. I was disqualified because it would have gotten on some food or something. Yeah, Tony first birthday. You know I had friends at work there at the time. I bet

they remember that night. I'm gonna ask them. You should ask my buddy Clay. Have them send in some listener mail. We'll read it. Alright, So Chuck, let's talk about I think we're going to talk about how people do this, right. Yeah, I think that the water we're on the water thing and we get really sidetracked by vomit. Kobayashi has a

little technique called Japanese ng or solemnon ng. Yeah, breaking the wiener in half, separating the weener from the bun, breaking the weener in half, stuffing the winer in his mouth with both hands at the same time, at the same time to to get yeah, to get the hold and then dunking the bun very quickly in the water. And it's at that point in the bun is just like a you know, stoppy mess. It goes down pretty easy, imagine, right. I was doing a little research, dude, and I gotta

tell you, Crystals is mixing it up. If they're they're hamburger eating contest into September coming up. Uh, they have a no dunking rule really, and they're introducing their big burgers. Oh wow, So it's gonna it's gonna be all crazy, gonna get messy. Yeah, but yeah, they won't be allowed to which is actually a radical departure from standard rules. Yeah.

I'd prefer to see a straight up contest. Yeah, I mean if it's not sixty eight dogs, who cares, what if it's like forty, but it's genuine hot dog eating, no dunking, no water, lots of vomiting. Yeah, that's what we all want, Chuck, we should probably put like a needle coming off of a record at this point. Thank you. We've um gotten kind of all delta force on this, you know, competitive eating, even though I think it's disgusting. Not everybody thinks it's a it's good or great or whatever.

A lot of people, including the fine, fine actor star of Van Wilder, Ryan Reynolds, thinks that basically it's a um, it's a real symbol of America's obese wastefulness. And you know what, that's not an argument that's easily defended. No, it really isn't, because you know, you think, well, this guy just eight, um, how many sixty eight hot dogs in eight minutes? How many uh, how many kids died in the eight minutes from starvation? And some of these competitors.

You're allowed to make yourself throw the food up afterward, right, Yeah, whatever you do after you after it's done, however you get rid of it, is okay. So that's straight up it is, and that's no one is encouraging that by any means. And it's dangerous. Some of these people too, when they train, they they'll drink like a gallon of water in a minute, and they try and do these

things to expand your stomach. That's dangerous too. It is there's actually water intoxication, which can be fatal because it screws with the the dilution of electrolytes in your body, which is bad. That's bad news, dude. Right, and a woman died of fears back from water intoxication from a contest. I had heard that. Well, not only that, Um, you

can actually get gastro pariasis, which is a stomach paralysis. Right, And basically, after your stomach is stretched out enough enough times, it will stop contracting and you won't evacuate your stomach to your small intestine any longer. Yeah, which is not good when that happens. Actually, yeah, so I don't know if you knew that. It's it's not good. The dark side of competitive eating. Uh, you know the people who endorse this or I'm gonna say that, they just have

a lot of fun with it. And then it's a tradition and it's kind of a big joke. I know when you see it on TV, they look like they're taking it really seriously. Apparently that's all kind of part of the act and they all think it's kind of funny. But dude, twenty grand on the line. Yeah, there's some serious prose money for for Nathan's hot dogs. It's twenty dollar prize and the mustard Belt. So, um, that's a

nice little chunk of change for stuff and down hot dogs. Plus. Also, um, I think the i fo c E does not endorse or support anybody practicing or training for it. But the gurigitators actually do train very hard. Actually, um, I think I was reading about an interview yeah with Joey chest U And dude, he drinks like a gallon of milk

in a single sitting to expand his stomach. Um, he eats or no, actually goes several days without eating and just subsist some protein supplements, so his weight will very radically, like in the teens and in low twenties of pounds within you know, a couple of weeks, and then afterwards he gains a lot of it back, because if you eat eight pounds of food, you just gained eight pounds pal Until you pass it, it's there and your stomach is in big trouble. Yeah, I can't imagine. I hate

feeling full. For god, that's like overweight. You would think that I'd just gorge myself, But dude, I hate feeling full. It's the worst stupid metaoism. Do you know why you feel full? Uh? Well, I know You've got a little science here. Try and legitimize this real. Um. So when you're hungry, uh, hormone produced in the stomach called growing sends a signal to your brain via the Vargas uh

nerve I believe, um. And as you eat, a hormone produced from the same d n A on the same genetic code called opus staton kind of like obese that goes to your brain and says, hey, dude, stop eating. Well, apparently a physiologist who's studying this name is David Mets from the University of Pennsylvania. He has he can't say how they're doing it, but from studying a guy called eater X sexually, UM, he he's figured out that these people have figured out how to block the signal from

their brain. Just highly dangerous a k. A. Kobayashi. It's probably not Kobayashi, but I bet he uses those techniques. I think they all do. They have to do. You have to expand your stomach. And actually, you noticed a lot of these people are very small. Uh. And there is a theory that kind of came about that said, the less fat you are, because you think, well, if you're a big bat guy, yeah, yeah, you're gonna be

able to just gorge yourself. And there's smaller people like the black widow hundred pounds, right, Um, she can put it away like the red like the best of them. And they think that the reason why is because there's less resistance for the stomach to stretch. It's not pressing up against fat, which doesn't give as much as air.

Sort of makes sense. Can I mention the paper that was written by Ed Cratchy, he's a uh, he's a competitive eater himself, and he were a paper called can Abdominal fat act as a restrictive agent on Stomach expansion? And Exploration of the impact of adipose tissue and competitive eating?

So it sounds very intelligent. Unfortunately, the medical community rejected it and it refused to publish it and said go eat your hot dog's buddy and leave the medical journaling to us, right, But Popular Science had an article that supported it in two thousand three. That's the tree this this basically checks out true. So legitimate maybe, but not as far as a medical science is concerned. I do want to talk about one gross thing. Yeah, since it

hasn't been gross at all. Old leg Or Zornitsky, he's he's very fashionable apparently he's known for his fashion sense. Ukrainian competitive eater. He this is the worst one to me, chicken wings. I love all that stuff brought worst. Give it, give it, give it up. He ate four thirty two ounce bowls of mayonnaise in eight minutes, and I love mayonnaise, and it makes me not want to eat mayonnaise. Four thirty two ounce bowls of mayonnaise. Can you imagine that? Man?

Is definitely something that you should eat in moderation. Okay, I'm not feeling so good now. Did you mention the cow's brains? No, Kobayashi, Kobyashi, he holds the record for eating cow's brains, which was do you know how many? Yeah? I think it was like eighteen pounds of cows brains in fifteen minutes. It was I could not eat one ounce of cow's brain in a lifetime. So koby Ashi has me lick did that one? Especially not with this

hoof and mouth thing that they've got going on. Seriously, So, if you want to learn more about competitive eating, including Ed Grebanowski's um first person account of what and eating contest is like, you can type in competitive eating appropriately enough in the handy search bar how stuff works dot com? And since I just said handy search bar how stuff works dot Com, that means it's time. Thank god for listener mail. Josh, I'm just gonna call this, um, we

are banned in classes? Yeah, I saw this one, you know. Yeah, this from Sarah, and Sarah says, I love the podcast, but I recently got a banned for my AP biology class. And did you take AP classes? You probably did, your smart guy. Really, I took AP English and AP history actually, but science not my thing. She is a senior in high school and for the past year she has spent every day in biology lab poking dead things and staring

at cell walls in a microscope. You can imagine gets a little boring, even for a bio fanatic, ignoring the stinch of fetal pigs and memorizing the function of cell organelles. So during study hall, I would take out my iPod and listen to your podcast. Some of the subjects we would cover overlap with podcast episodes I just listened to, so I would mention what I had learned in essays or discussions and even on an AP exam using us. Anyway,

my teacher discovered this. She was thrilled that I've been doing research out of class and she asked where I was learning all these odd but accurate facts. When I let her listen to the iPod, she called it a utensil for cheating or a tool of the devil, and subsequently banned it from our classroom. And I really think she was more upset about not being able to answer my questions about alien hand syndrome than she was about my listening to the podcast. But either way, thanks so

much for helping me. As her essay questions, you guys are the best. For the record, I never used your podcasts as a utensive to cheating. All the best, Sarah, fantastic. So we are educating and getting kids in trouble all over the world. I like that our listeners are generally moral people. I think so good false at the very least, there is if If you've ever been told that we're a utensil for something, uh, let us know. Send it in an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works

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