Eating Your Heart Out: Takeru Kobayashi and Nathan's Hot Dog Contest

Notes:

With America's Independence Day celebration soon upon us, this Japan Times column from 2007 perhaps fits now, in late June, better than its original publication month of April.

As for Takeru Kobayashi... While considered a legend in this "sport," most of his achievements have been surpassed.

The annual hot dog record at Nathan's, for example, is now 76 – devoured in ten minutes, not twelve – by Joey Chestnut. Chestnut is the true Babe Ruth of competitive eating.

Which involves far more than gobbling hot dogs, including, in no particular order, foodstuff like...

Ribs, waffles, chicken wings, grilled cheese sandwiches, asparagus, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, pulled pork, sausage, gyoza, tamales, pretzels, hard boiled eggs, pizza, ice cream, funnel cake, brats, steak, onions, gyros, poutine, apple pie, popcorn, Twinkies, shrimp cocktail, chili, pumpkin pie, gumbo, meat pie, bacon, ramen, cow brains...

And who knows how many more. Most sponsored by food companies out for the advertisement.

With marketing in mind, the IFOCE (see the column) has changed its name to Major League Eating, or MLE, for professional events. Far catchier than the longer tag.

There are events for tacos as well and it is here that Kobayashi still clings to one noble achievement. In 2017, he consumed 159 tacos in ten minutes, a mark that stands even today.

My own personal taco record is six in 45 minutes. But I bet I enjoyed mine more.

For a further and more somber note on Kobayashi, look to the column's end.

For the metrically challenged, here are some quick conversions:

48 kg = 106 pounds

5 kg = 11 pounds.

244 cm = 8 feet

50 kg = 110 pounds

73 kg = 161 pounds

My title is "Eating Your Heart Out: Takeru Kobayashi and Nathan's Hot Dog Contest" a tweak on the Japan Times title, just below

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Eating More Than Your Heart Out

Apr 28, 2007

If the old saw is correct and, "You are what you eat," then Takeru Kobayashi is a hot dog. In more ways than one.

First, he is the brightest star in one of the world's fastest growing "sports" – competitive eating.

And what he is most renowned for is his dominance of the "sports' " marquee event, Nathan's annual Fourth of July hot dog chow down in New York, a contest he has won for six years running and where he once devoured 53 plus dogs in twelve minutes.

That's right. In twelve minutes. And that other phrasing is right, too. Competitive eating is catching on.

There is, for example, a professional eater's association – the International Federation of Competitive Eating or the IFOCE. True, the acronym doesn't have the same zip as say, the "NBA" or "FIFA," but it still carries a respectable ring – not unlike a dinner bell.

The IFOCE supervises dozens and dozens of eating events around the world, in foods ranging from candy bars to cannoli to ice cream to onions and more. Prize money can reach into the thousands of dollars and some contests draw TV time.

Where announcers salt and pepper competitors with comments like, "These guys are major league eaters!" Or, in considering who might win, "It's all a question of jaw power!" Or, during the final minutes, "[Now] they've got to ignore the pain, ignore the feeling of fullness!"

The hype and coverage have created a fat menu of eating heroes, like Joey Chestnut of California, expert in chicken wings and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Or 48-kg Sonya Thomas of Virginia, nicknamed the "Black Widow" for the way

she can eat her way past men much larger than her size. Little Sonya, originally from South Korea, once gulped down five kg of cheesecake in nine minutes and 65 hard-boiled eggs in six minutes.

Or Crazy Legs Conti, a window-washer from New York, who is billed as the "Houdini of Cuisini" for eating his way out of a 244-cm-long popcorn box. Conti also has a video entitled, "Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating."

Question: What is the sound of one lip smacking?

Which brings us back to Kobayashi, who because of his status as the greatest eater of all time, helps cast an Oriental mystique over all this ingestion.

Nicknamed "The Tsunami" for the way he wipes out both plates of food and rows of rivals, 27-year-old Kobayashi was once a 50-kg-hot-dog-gorging miracle who has since transformed himself into 73 kg of muscle, thanks to a weight-lifting regimen that keeps him a few bites ahead of his competition.

He is also blessed with a downwardly distended stomach and a knack for innovation, including his development of the now famous "Solomon Method" of hot-dog consumption. The dogs are snapped in two, dipped in water and then shoved in, both halves at once.

He is also known for the "Kobayashi Shake," a kind of "I gotta go pee" wiggle that helps him jiggle the hot dogs down his throat.

Of course, hot dogs aren't everything. Kobayashi also dominates in brats, Krystal hamburgers, rice balls and cow brains. Like his wannabe competitors, he takes eating seriously and stays in tip-top shape. After all, more than food, there is money on the table.

With that in mind, Kobayashi and his fellows can't be blamed. So let me point my finger of shame at our consumer society instead.

Obesity runs rampant. Fast-food is destroying our diet. And if you peek just a bit beyond our over-stocked kitchens to the rest of the global-village, you can spy hunger stalking like a wolf, with children its chief prey.

And with this, we have eating competitions? Oodles of them. Something about this gives me heartburn.

And what's next? Will we see how many packs of Marlboros a person can suck away? Or how many shots of Johnny Walker one might guzzle? Or discover some further way in which we can both assault our health and promote greater purchasing?

To its credit, the IFOCE has strict safety guidelines and a stern, "Kids, don't try this at home," approach. Yet, how can young, impressionable viewers not be tempted?

Global warming?

Sometimes I think the earth's greatest danger is common-sense warming, in which the human consciousness has melted into something soft and sappy. We just ignore the pain, ignore the fullness of our own foolhardiness.

The eating bouts I have seen on TV all have had a cheery mood with the competitors seemingly earnest and positive. I hate to throw a towel on good, clean fun.

But in competitive eating, the one sure way to lose is to upchuck the goodies. Vomit and you're out.

In my case, I get sick just watching. So it's time, I think, to turn the channel.

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 More notes:

Takeru Kobayashi retired from competitive eating in 2024, at age 46. Besides the creep of Father Time, he cited two other reasons for calling it quits:

*Damage to his digestive system due to long years of abuse.

*Loss of ability to taste and smell food. Meaning: he no longer enjoyed eating.

I suppose all "athletes" pay a price for their success. And earn a lot of dough doing it. But what a cost – to no longer enjoy eating.

People punish their health by overeating, or over anything. To me, that's the sad, bottom line message of competitive consumption.

© Thomas Noah Wood

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