Joey Chestnut, who repeated his winning ways in this year’s edition of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, accomplished the nearly miraculous and unbelievably revolting act of eating 76 full sized hotdogs and buns in roughly 10 minutes. It was another world record.
While Nathan’s benefits from the publicity generated by the annual eating contest, the competition has come under attack once again by left wing groups appalled at the stupefying spectacle of stomach-turning gluttony in a world still afflicted by hunger. Critics also wondered out loud why anyone would actually choose to watch an event where the chief suspense was achieved by watching contestants fend off the gag reflex.
Marxist economists, of course, blamed the contest on the capitalist system, accusing it of producing a surfeit of artery clogging meat products whose only purpose was to keep the proletariat fat and satiated. As Marx wrote in Das Kapital, “Hot dogs are the opiate of the people.”
According to physicians cited by the anti-meat organization, PETA, which like most progressive lobbies wants to protect ignorant people from harming themselves, in eating his way to victory, Mr. Chestnut consumed a prodigious 22,000 calories worth of dogs and buns—about 10 days’ worth of the normal average daily requirement for men—in less than 10 minutes. But to burn off the same number of calories (avoiding any weight gain) would take far longer than 10 minutes.
By way of example, doctors calculated that Mr. Chestnut would need to run about 200 miles to consume 22,000 calories. Or, he might engage in vigorous coitus for 50 hours followed immediately by a 50 mile run. Obese Americans—the next oppressed group vying for recognition of their victim status--condemned this metabolic inequity and wondered if someone had tampered with their fat cells.
Asked by a snide PETA flack to comment on the adverse health consequences of competitive gluttony, Mr. Chestnut was defiant. “I just throw up for three or four hours straight and that burns it all off. Puking is a pretty good work out; try heaving up 16 pounds of meat and nearly 10 pounds of bread,” he challenged, laughing at the expressions of disgust and contempt from reporters.
“Be sure to watch again next year, you PETA bitches,” Chestnut shouted gleefully as the hostile group backed away. “Gonna eat 77 dogs, 77 buns and a few stray cats.”
