The world of competitive eating

Great story Gerrod. Top notch summary of our Independence Day celebrations. If you don’t mind though, I’d like to take a minute to focus on the wonderful world of competitive eating.

Who would have thought that this is practically a professional sport, with a regulatory board and everything? Not me, that’s for sure. But once you start looking into it, it’s pretty incredible stuff. For instance, I can’t imagine what kind of training these people would have to do and how they can physically get so much stuff into their stomachs. Plus, that Sonya Thomas chicky (pictured right) weighs significantly less than me and the idea of eating 37 hot dogs in a week, let alone 12 minutes, grosses me out.

But compete she does, in eating events including asparagus (deep fried of course), baked beans, vienna sausage, chicken nuggets, chicken wings, hardboiled eggs (65 in under 7 minutes), fruitcake, lobster and the list goes on. As much as Ben likes cheesecake, I doubt he could rival her 11 pounds (5 kgs) in 9 minutes.

Having reviewed the list of events and records, I’d pass on the beef tongue. I’d pass on the butter. I’d pass on the SPAM. But chocolate bars might be right up my alley.