Stuff You Should Know - What's up with competitive eating?

Episode Date: August 6, 2009

Competitive eating is a modern "sport" that's very popular in the United States. Join Josh and Chuck as they delve into the fascinatingly gross world of competitive eating in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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to find out more. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, with me as always is Charles W. Chuck, Chuckers, Chucklehead, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck Bryant. You can just call me Kobayashi. No. Okay, good.

That was a great set up, Chuck. Let's talk about it, competitive eating, go. Wow, you had something better than that planned out, didn't you? No, no, really. Okay. I was talking about, like, oh, I'm all full. I remember in high school, back when I was a younger man, there was this place, do you remember Buffalo's?

The chain? I don't think it's around anymore. I think they are. Buffalo's, the Wings Cafe or whatever? Yeah, yeah. They used to have like an ongoing 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. Right, right. And I had a couple friends on there at the one by Sprayberry High School. Mary and George, I don't think 50 or more got on there. Did you go to Sprayberry? Yeah, I went to 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 that I don't know? No, I did not realize that, that they went there. Yeah. I've got, let me see. I think I had a cup. Chris Cardocchi went to my school. He was an NFL punter.

And where'd you go? I went to Reed 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? Weird.

Well, Chuck, what's the most you've ever eaten? I have no idea. It had to be some 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. Yeah. One of my friends had to be helped out. I had to help him out with another friend, Hippy Rob.

Hippy Justin. OK. Yeah. Close. Really? Wow, yeah, that was close. Yeah, I don't do the buffet thing anymore. I learned that from my dad, how to master the buffet when I was very young.

To get your money's worth? Yeah, yeah, and I've since learned my dad was busy gorging himself. My mom was stuffing things in her purse. This is how things were in the 70s when he went to a buffet. Yeah, well, buffets have come a long way since then. They have. And why does anyone go to any cafeteria-style restaurant? Especially if you're really 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's worth. Agreed. So buffets, we've both eaten too much at buffets. That's our setup, really?

Yeah, but no more. Let's talk about competitive eating. There's nothing competitive about a buffet except vying for the white meat. Sure. That's the only competitive part. That's your thing? Yeah. Yeah.

So there are people out there, as you may have guessed by now, that eat competitively. A lot of people. You've got rugby, you have high-lie, poker, dolphin lassoing, and competitive eating. Yeah. Those are pretty much the top four or five sports. I don't remember how many I just said. Oh, OK. Yeah.

Yeah. I would agree. I can't think of any other sport that would top those. No. I would put high-lie in the first position, though. Would you really? Oh, yeah. OK.

So I guess we should just go ahead and say that there is an actual federation called the International Federation of Competitive Eating, the IFOCE. It's since been retitled Major League Eating. Did you know that? Their organization, really? I think they still go by the IFOCE. But they also go by Major League Eating. This sounds more official the other way.

I like the first one more, too. I'm just going to 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 famous Nathan's Hot Dogs stand in Coney Island started competitive eating in 1916 with four friends who sat down together and challenged each other to out-eat hot dogs 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, 4th of July, right, that they did it? I think so. And then they, I think, one of them ate like 13 hot dogs and he was the better patriot. And since then, it's been a thing. Which is, it's peanuts. It's measly. Can I stop doing that accent now?

No, I'd like you to continue for the rest of the podcast. How would that be great? Yeah. Are you going to? No. It sounds very Coney Island, Chuck. I appreciate that. Very Coney Island, 1916.

I mean, you nailed it. So I think Nathan's continued this for all 4th of July after that, or probably the vast majority, probably not during World War II. Nobody did anything during World War II. The thing is, is people were still just kind of eating 12, 13, 16 hot dogs, right? Yeah. Which is nothing compared to what they do now. Right.

And there were other eating competitions. There was this one between a guy who played outfield, I think, for the Yankees, Ping Bode. Okay. He was an Italian-American. And in 1919, he engaged in a spaghetti-eating contest with an ostrich. I challenge you, ostrich. Yep. But I think that's exactly how it went down, too.

And the ostriches was like, what spaghetti? The ostrich just ate whatever was placed in front of it. Yeah, exactly. 11 bowls, apparently. Really? Ping Bode was declared the winner because apparently the ostrich either fainted or died on its 11th bowl, depending on who you ask. That's a proud tradition of the Yankees.

Exactly. The dark side. And Ping just probably ate the unconscious ostrich and smoked five cigars right after it. Right, exactly. And then you got in a drinking contest with Babe Ruth. Right. That's probably how that went down.

Yeah. So there's also pie-eating contests, a staple of country fairs, county fairs. Yeah, back in the day, I think in the article, at least, it said that that was more along the lines of, hey, let's tie your hands behind your back, not necessarily see how many pies you can eat. So it was a little more, I wouldn't say challenging, but I think the fun of it. Closer? Yeah, more gross.

Chuck, we have been organically and irresistibly led right back to standby. I know you're going to say that. How could I not? Yeah, the great, great story that young Wil Wheaton says about the, that he makes up as the young writer. Yeah. The pie-eating contest. Yep.

Lard. Right, wide load. Great scene. Fantastic scene. But yes, so that was a county fair pie-eating contest. Uh-huh. It just kind of goes willy-nilly all over the place. Anybody who wanted to get 50 people or so to their store would hold an eating contest.

Well, in the 90s, as we were saying, I think 1997, George and Richard Shea, who I think may still run publicity for Nathan's famous hot dogs, 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. Gurgitators, that's right. Gross. It is. It is gross because you slap a re on there and you're talking about someone who pukes. Exactly. And we'll get into the puke thing in a minute.

I know, I can't wait. Just to warn people. It is coming. Yeah. So, since the late 90s, actually since the 21st 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 13, 15, 18 hot dogs. Right.

Oh, hum. And then like, I think starting in about 2002, a little fella, I think 160 pounds out of Japan, named Takeru Kobayashi, which is why you said call me Kobayashi. Not to be confused with the attorney in the usual suspects. Oh, is it? Okay. Die hard. I'm an idiot.

Die hard. Kobayashi, the usual suspects. Yeah. That's Nakatomi. Yeah, Nakatomi Tower is what I was thinking. Yeah. No, I'm talking Kobayashi in the usual suspects. I feel like a heel now.

It's okay, Chuck. Because I'm a movie guy. Do you want us to edit this part out? No. Okay. Thanks for leaving it in, Chuck. Okay. So Takeru Kobayashi hits the scene, 160 pounds, shocking red hair, can eat 50, 60 hot dogs

in like eight minutes. 10 minutes. So all of a sudden, all these guys who are, you know, just like, oh, check me out, I ate 18 hot dogs in 10 minutes. These, they're weeping at home in their garages. Right. 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. Oh, yeah. 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. But so yeah, 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.

Are we ever going to? Yeah. We're not going to get around to any of this. No. But the Nathan's Hot Dog Contest is easily the most famous and I mean, it's broadcast on... It's like the World Series or the Super Bowl. Yeah.

I mean, have you actually watched it in full? I wish you wouldn't ask me that. Because 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 it was disgusting. It was really, really gross and hard to watch. You know, I've read and actually I've got to source this openly and honestly. I've read this on cracked.com.

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

I had a hard time watching it. Yeah. Do you didn't make it through the whole thing? No, I watched it because I wanted to see if it was the big match up between Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut. Hey, friends, whether you need it for work, school or a special project, it's important to have the right printer, right, Josh? That's right.

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That was the year that Kobayashi had a jaw injury that supposedly healed. And apparently during the competition, Chestnut beat Kobayashi 66-63 and Kobayashi says, no, no, I had a jaw injury and Chestnut says, eat it, buddy. I beat you and I'm now the champion. And Kobayashi said, dunk it in some water and I will eat it. Because that is a technique that many competitive eaters use. It is. And actually almost all of them, Ed Grabinowski, the Grabster who wrote this article, actually

for this article, went to an eating contest in Buffalo. Really? Yeah, he describes it. Clearly, you didn't read the last two pages. I didn't. He describes this visit to it and, you know, several people are there, Sonya Thomas, the Black Widow. 100 pounds, dude.

100 pounds of Korean ancestry fury. Can we just go ahead and mention a couple of records she holds? Yeah. Because she is littered over the IFOCE record book. Sonya Thomas has eaten 35, brought worse, in 10 minutes. She's eaten 167 chicken wings in 32 minutes. She's eaten four pounds of fruit cake in 10 minutes. Can I say my favorite?

Yeah. She's eaten 8.31 pounds of armor Vienna sausage in 10 minutes. Wow. Wow. All right. And I'm going to go with this final one, unless you have one. She ate 44 main lobsters, dude, in 12 minutes. And that's the meat, obviously, only, which was 11 pounds of meat.

She also, you left out probably your most famous one. Which is that? Have you seen Cool Hand Luke? Oh, yeah, sure. You know the hard-boiled egg eating contest, so Cool Hand Luke tries to eat 50 in an hour. She ate 65 hard-boiled eggs in six minutes, 40 seconds. Wow. 100 pounds of woman.

Yeah. She ate 50 down and through out. Yeah. She eats once a day, one large meal a day, usually from a buffet. Sure. In the article, she's shown helping herself to some sushi. I saw that. And yeah, she's 100 pounds.

She lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and she dominates right now as, what's the date today, Chuck, the 31st of July? Sure. She is number six in the IFOCE rankings. I bet she's the top female in G. Yes, she is. I imagine she destroys the female competition. Yeah.

It's good for her. Right. And again, like you said, she's 100 pounds. It's awesome. And she goes by the black widow. So it doesn't get cooler than that, right? No, not any cooler. We talked about Kobayashi-Hu for, I think, from like 2002 to 2007, held all the major

records. Right. He just could not be stopped. Yeah. And so competitive eating. He's from Japan. The Japanese just dominated competitive eating. Yeah.

Until 2007. Joey. And Joey Chestnut shows up. Joey C. That guy has put the smack down on absolutely everybody, everyone. He holds some crazy, crazy records. He ate 103 crystal burgers, which our friends in the Northeast are the same thing as White Castle pretty much.

Yeah. Sliders. And I don't know what they would be out west. Any clue? Are Jack in the Box small and square? No. Yeah, okay. I don't remember.

I don't actually remember ever seeing any little sliders out there. I'm sure they have them, though. If you go onto the IFOCE website and click on Joey Chestnut, if you dare, everything that comes up, he's just got this laundry list of records that he holds, right? He's a champion eater for sure. And he has kicked Kobayashi's butt in 0708 and then just a month or like not even a month ago in 09. Yeah.

Instead of New World Records. Right. That jaw injury excuse only goes so far. Yeah. 68 hot dogs is what Joey Chestnut ate this year. And that's including puns. And let's talk about how some of these people do this. You talked about dunking in water, almost everybody uses mostly water, but you're allowed

to with any drip, dip your food in a drink. I would use Guinness beer. It makes it, you would get so full, you would puke everywhere. Have a Roman incident, is that what you mean? That's what the IFOCE 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, correct? But apparently from what I understand, if you puke and it doesn't touch the table or

whatever, you can proceed. I guess, but at the same time, like they probably count that as eaten. I think in 2002, Kobayashi had a little controversy where he vomited some up and it was counted as eaten. He held most of it back though, right? Yeah, he put his hand, see, that's what's so gross, man, is he's guys and ladies are eating the stuff and they're just stuffing it in their mouths and you can see this like look on their face like they're going to die and all of a sudden you see one of them like

and they put their hand over their mouth and you know what's happening. Can I tell you a little story? Yeah, oh god. A little story from my past. Let's hear it. So imagine Josh Clark, age 21 on July 15th. Okay, asleep in a field behind a Home Depot. That would have been July 15th, 1997.

Okay. So I'm in Athens, Georgia. Go dogs. Right. And I'm at, what was the, I guess the Half Moon Pub? Yeah. It was downstairs. Yeah, I had friends that worked there downstairs from the Athens Coffee House.

I think so. It was. So I'm down at Half Moon hanging out with some friends and I see a guy who I'm mutual friends with or we have mutual friends, I'm sorry. Right. But he and I don't really like each other. Okay. He comes over and he goes, hey, I hear it's your birthday.

Let me buy you a shot. I'm like, sure, no problem. So he buys me a shot of $252. What is that? Bacardi? Are you ready? It's a shot of Bacardi 151 and Wild Turkey 101. Oh, my Lord.

There is no reason for the shot to exist in the universe. Right? Yeah. So the guy buys me the shot. I take it, you know, not wanting to look like a coward and already kind of ripped. I take the shot and I feel it immediately starting to come back up and not just that. Everything. Everything.

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? Right. And I showed him. Uh-huh. That's what happened to my head. You want to hear what happened in reality?

Yeah. The guy buys me the shot. I take it, throw my hand up 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. No. And you were disqualified.

I was disqualified because it would have gotten on some food or something. Wow. Yeah. 21st birthday. You know, I had friends that worked there at the time. I bet they remember that night. I'm going to ask them. You should.

Ask my buddy Clay. Have them send in some listener mail. We'll read it. Okay. All right. So Chuck, let's talk about, I think we're going to talk about how people do this, right? Yeah. I think the water, we're on the water thing.

We get really sidetracked by vomit. Kobayashi has a little technique called Japanese-ing or solumen-ing. Yeah. Breaking the wiener in half, separating the wiener from the bun, breaking the wiener in half, stuffing the wiener in his mouth with both hands. At the same time. At the same time. To, to, uh, yeah.

To get the whole thing going. And then, uh, dunking the bun very quickly in the water and it's, at that point, the bun is just like a, you know, a soppy mess. It goes down pretty easy, I imagine. Right. I was doing a little research, dude. And I got to tell you, crystals is mixing it up. Hey friends, whether you need it for work, school, or a special project, it's important

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Visit gateonetravel.com for more information or to book your tour. That's gatethenumberonetravel.com. Once again, use promo code HEART20 through January 30th to receive 20% off your 2023 app. If they're hamburger eating contest in September coming up, they have a no dunking rule. Really? Yep. And they're introducing their big burgers.

Oh, wow. So it's going to be all crazy. Going to get messy. Yeah. But yeah, there won't be a lot of dunk, 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 68 dogs who cares, what if it's like 40, but it's genuine hot dog eating, no dunking, no water. Lots of vomiting. Lots. Yeah. That's what we all want. Chuck, we should probably put like a needle coming off of a record at this point. Right.

Thank you. We've gotten kind of all Delta 4C on this in our competitive eating. Even though I think it's disgusting. Not everybody thinks 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 real symbol of America's obese wastefulness. Sure. And you know what?

That's not an argument that's easily defended. No, it really isn't because you think, well, this guy just ate, how many? 68. 68 hot dogs in eight minutes. How many kids died in that eight minutes from starvation? Right. And some of these competitors, you're allowed to make yourself throw the food up afterward. Right.

However you do after it's done, however you get rid of it is okay with that. So that's straight up bulimia. 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'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 dilution of electrolytes in your body, which is bad. That's bad news too. Right. And a woman died a few years back from water intoxication from a contest. I had heard that. Well, not only that, you can actually get gastroporiasis, which is a stomach paralysis,

right? 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. Which is not good when that happens actually. Yeah. So I don't know if you knew that. It's not good.

It's a dark side of competitive eating. The people who endorse this are going to 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, 20 grand on the line. Yeah. There's some serious prize money.

For Nathan's Hot Dogs, it's a $20,000 prize and the mustard belt. So that's a nice little chunk of change. Yeah. For stuffing down hot dogs. Plus also, I think the IFOCE does not endorse or support anybody practicing or training for it. Yeah. But the guercitators actually do train very hard actually.

I think I was reading about an interview with Joey Chestnut. And dude, he drinks like a gallon of milk in a single sitting to expand his stomach. He eats or actually goes several days without eating and just subsists some protein supplements. So his weight will vary radically like in the teens and low 20s of pounds within 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. God, it's like overweight. You would think that I'd just gorge myself, but dude, I hate feeling full. Yeah. It's the worst. I agree.

It's my stupid metabolism. Do you know why you feel full? Well, I know you've got a little science here. Okay. Try and legitimize this. Really? Yeah. So when you're hungry, a hormone produced in the stomach called ghrelin sends a signal

to your brain via the vagus nerve, I believe. And as you eat, a hormone produced from the same DNA, the same genetic code called obastatin, kind of like obese, right? Imagine that. That goes to your brain and says, Hey, dude, stop eating. Right. Well, apparently a physiologist who's studying this, his name's David Metz from the University of Pennsylvania, right?

He has, he can't say how they're doing it, but from studying a guy called eater X sexually me, um, he, he's figured out that these people have figured out how to block the signal from their brain. Really? It's just highly dangerous. AKA Kobayashi. Sure. It's probably not Kobayashi, but I bet he uses those techniques.

I think they all do. Oh, they have to. You have to expand your stomach. And actually, you know, just a lot of these people are very small and there was a theory that kind of came about that said the less fat you are, because you'd think, well, if you're a big fat guy, you're going to be able to just gorge. You yourself. Yeah.

They say no. Smaller people like the black widow, a hundred pounds, right? Um, she can put it away like the, 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. Yeah. It's not pressing up against fat, which doesn't give as much as air. Sort of makes sense.

Yeah. Can I mention the paper that was written? Yeah. By Ed Cratchy. He, he's a, uh, he's a competitive eater himself and he wrote 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, uh, medical community rejected it and refused to publish it and said, go eat your hot dogs, buddy, and leave the medical journaling to us. Right. But popular science had, uh, uh, an article that supported it in 2003 that said, yeah, this, this basically checks out. True. It may be, but not as far as, uh, medical science is concerned. I do want to talk about one gross thing.

Oh yeah. It says it's been gross at all. Right. Uh, Oleg Zornitsky, he's these 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 32 ounce bowls of mayonnaise in eight minutes. Yep. And I love mayonnaise and it makes me not want to eat mayonnaise for 32 ounce bowls of mayonnaise. Can you imagine that mayonnaise is definitely something that you should eat in moderation. Okay.

I'm not feeling so good now. Did you mention the cows brains? No. Kobayashi Kobayashi. He holds the record for eating cows brains, which was, do you know how many? Yeah. I think it was like 18 pounds of cows brains in 15 minutes. It was.

I could not eat one ounce of cows brain in a lifetime. So I think Kobayashi has me licked at 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 Grabinowski's first person account of what an eating contest is like, you can type in competitive eating appropriately enough in the handysearchbar at howstuffworks.com and since I just said handysearchbar at howstuffworks.com, that means it's time. Thank God for listener mail.

Josh, I'm just going to call this, um, we are banned in classes. Yeah. I saw this one. Yeah. This is from Sarah. And Sarah says, I love the podcast, but I recently got it banned for my AP biology class. And did you take AP classes? You probably did.

You're a smart guy. No. 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 it gets a little boring, even for a bio fanatic, uh, ignoring the stench 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'd learned in essays or discussions, and even on an AP exam. Wow. Using us. Uh, anyway, my teacher discovered this. She was thrilled that I'd been doing, uh, 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. 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 ace her essay questions. You guys are the best for the record. I never used your podcast as a utensil for 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. Yeah. Good folks. But the very least Sarah is, if you've ever been told that we're a utensil for something, uh, let us know, send it in an email to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com.

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the HowStuffWorks.com homepage. Hey, if you're a fan of Altoids, the curiously strong mints, you probably have a lot of empty tins laying around. You can do some pretty cool stuff with them. You can make survival kits, flash drives, even robots. Check out Altoids on Facebook to find out more.

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