The Fourth of July can represent many things to different people.
The red, white and blue holiday can be the day we celebrate our country’s independence, an excuse to get together with family and friends for barbeques and parties, or a chance to watch fireworks celebrations across the land. Oh yeah. It’s also the day for the world’s finest competitive eaters to stuff hot dogs down their pie holes.
For the past 100 years, folks have gathered at Nathan’s Famous in Coney Island, N.Y., where they stuff hot dogs down their throats at nauseating (literally) speeds.
On Monday afternoon, old pro Joey Chestnut “inhaled” 70 dogs in 10 minutes to set an event record and win the most prestigious eating competition in the world. At a recent qualifying event, he had broken his own world record of 69 by eating 73.
The competition has grown into an incredible spectator “sport,” with more than 40,000 people packing into Nathan’s Coney Island Flagship Monday. The contest has also been broadcast on ESPN since 2004, and last year’s viewership for the annual contest exceeded every July 4 Major League Baseball broadcast. So yes, people are indeed watching. Unfortunately, on Monday, ESPN was unable to air it live on TV due to a Wimbledon conflict. Nonetheless, it was telecast live online, then tape-delayed after Wimbeldon.
Perhaps that’s why the contest has grown into the public spectacle that it has, with more than $40,000 in prize money being shelled out, including $10,000 apiece to the men’s and women’s winners. Maybe it’s because the idea of consuming that much food that quickly is so disgusting that people just can’t resist. Whatever the reason, I’m guessing that when Nathan Handwerker opened the shop 100 years ago, he never foresaw what was to come. Handwerker, a Polish immigrant, came to the United States in 1912 and began working various jobs in the food industry. In 1916, he used a $300 loan from friends and began his own business selling juice and frankfurters before bringing Nathan’s into existence.
Monday’s competition marked the 100th year that Nathan’s has been slinging hot dogs, but the legend of the hot dog eating contest is a bit cloudy. Legend has the inaugural contest taking place in 1916 when an Irish immigrant named James Mullen challenged three other immigrants to a hot dog eating contest to prove who was the most patriotic. That story’s still in circulation today, though a 2010 New York Times story quoted a former contest “hype-man” as saying it was made up.
In reality, the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest actually celebrated its 45th birthday Monday, the first one taking place in 1972. At the time, it was a way for Nathan’s to gain publicity. The company had just become publicly traded and, according to former Nathan’s president Wayne Norbitz, the company hoped to get newspaper coverage.
What is true no matter what story you believe is that Nathan’s contest has not always been the gluttonous spectacle it has become. Norbitz recently told the New York Post that in 1972 and throughout the early days of the competition, “We’d honestly wait for a couple of fat guys to walk by and ask them if they wanted to be in a hot dog contest.” The winner of the 1972 contest ate 14 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes, a number that is absurdly low by today’s lofty standards.
The numbers remained relatively mundane until 2001, when a pint-sized Japanese man named Takeru Kobayashi burst on the scene. Prior to Kobayashi, the most hot dogs consumed at the event was 25, and that was in 2000. Even before that, winners were consuming hot dog counts in the teens or low 20s. That all changed in 2001, when Kobayashi, who became the first household name to most of us, crushed 50 hot dogs, a number he narrowly beat the next season by devouring 50½ dogs and buns. It began a string of six straight championships for Kobayashi, who hit his high-water mark of 53¾ in 2006.
As recently as 2005, the second-place finisher was still only in the 30s, and that was actually the all-time most famous women’s eater Sonya “Black Widow” Thomas, who swallowed 37. But the third-place finisher that season was an unknown by the name of Chestnut, who ate 32.
Things really got interesting in 2006 when Kobayashi finally found himself in a battle. Chestnut went dog for dog with the king before the reigning champ edged out the challenger, 53¾ to 52 in a nail-biter. In 2007, Chestnut ended Kobayashi’s reign by consuming a then-record 66 dogs and buns.
That began the fabled Chestnut reign. In 2008, the competition was cut back to 10 minutes, and even though the count dropped to 59 for Chestnut that season, he broke his former record in 2009 by eating 68 dogs even though he had two less minutes to do so. He set the former world record in 2013 with 69 dogs in 10 minutes, and won his eighth consecutive crown in 2014 with 61 dawgie dogs. Last year he lost to Matt Stonie, ending his proud run, but reclaimed the Mustard Belt Monday with his ninth career victory.
Competitive eating is not what it once was. In 1997, two brothers by the name George and Richard Shea were publicity agents for Nathan’s when they began the International Federation of Competitive Eating. Just a few years later, the organization changed its name to Major League Eating. The organization oversees hundreds of eating competitions worldwide.
As you can probably guess, as competitive eating rose in popularity over the past 20 years, with more and more prize money available, people are looking for creative ways to cram more dogs down their throats. That has led to some unhealthy practices.
Most athletes need to train to achieve optimal performance. The same is true for competitive eaters, although their training differs from that of other “athletes” because competitive-eating training can be very dangerous. One of the most common training practices is drinking a gallon of water in 30 seconds … after eating. That way, the stomach is stretched in a practice that can lead to all sorts of health problems — gastric ruptures, stomach-lining perforations, and even water intoxication — which can be fatal.
But, like athletes taking risks by injecting steroids to gain a sporting edge, competitive eaters look past the risks and push on with dangerous training sessions. Major League Eating does not ban training sessions but does not recommend it, either. But look at the results. Both Stonie and Chestnut, the world’s top two ranked eaters, according the MLE, both train prior to contests. In fact, ESPN even showed what Monday timetables leading up the competition. Part of Chestnut’s morning was spent drinking a gallon of water four to five hours prior to the competition. These training sessions are what has allowed competitors to up the ante in terms of hot dogs eaten, and it’s also the reason why the world’s top gluttons aren’t fatties. Actually, the top eaters all tend to be remarkably lean.
Research suggests that fat can actually block the stomach from expanding as it fills with food. So just because people look like they can pack it away doesn’t necessarily mean they can.
Another attribute among competitive eaters is that they seem to be able to block out the signal from the brain that the stomach it’s full. Known as the satiety reflex, it tells people when they’ve eaten enough, and it also works as a trigger for vomiting. And isn’t vomiting the reason fans watch? It’s kind of like watching NASCAR for the crashes. You wouldn’t watch if everyone just ate their hot dogs with no inherent risk of it coming back up.
It’s called “a Roman incident” when someone in competitive eating vomits and, you guessed it — Major League Eating does have rules about vomiting. Although contestants must keep the food down during competition, they are welcome to do as they please afterward. Still, competitors must be careful where they barf immediately after the clock stops. If any vomit touches their plate or table at any time, a competitor is immediately disqualified.
And as you probably surmised, anyone eating nearly 70 hot dogs is packing down some humongous calories and fat. Right again! Seventy dogs contain a tidy 19,600 calories and 1,225 grams of fat. That means the winners are devouring roughly 10 times their body’s caloric needs.
But the gluttonous competitions can be lucrative indeed. Chestnut made more than $200,000 last year, while Stonie topped $100,000.
Thus, the “sport” will likely continue to grow.
Jason Butynski is a Greenfield native and Recorder sportswriter. His email address is jbutynski@recorder.com. Like him on Facebook and leave your feedback at www.facebook.com/jaybutynski.