Saturday, February 02, 2008

My 24,000 Calorie Breakfast

Yesterday morning, Joey Chestnut, the first and only human being (and the second Earthling*) to ever beat now-retired eating champion Kobayashi, won his third consecutive Wing Bowl Title. While the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest (where Chestnut beat his eastern rival) may be the most famous eating contest in the world, the Philadelphia Wing Bowl, always held early in the morning a couple days before the Super Bowl, has grown from a radio publicity stunt to the largest competitive eating event in the entire world.

Every year there's a sell-out crowd of around 20,000, with other gluttony-fans turned away at the door. And Joey Chestnut, 2 years after he made his glorious debut, has won his third straight crown, breaking the record with a hearty breakfast of 241 chicken wings (in under 45 minutes of eating). It was reported that each chicken wing is about 100 calories, making Joey's triumphant feast probably close to the--if not the single--most caloric breakfast in history. That's almost 2 weeks worth of calories for a normal person in one meal.

I don't like to toss around the word "hero" too liberally, but that's impressive. And it makes me hungry.

* - For those of you who are wondering, Kobayashi once lost a hot dog eating contest to a 900 pound Kodiak bear on Fox's "Man vs. Beast" special. I saw it; it was impressive. He had the lead for a while until the bear started swallowing multiple dogs at a time without chewing. Kobayashi retired after breaking his own world record for hot dog eating--in the same contest in which Chestnut broke it by slightly more. The Asian eating phenom had been having jaw problems and sought not to exacerbate them.

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