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Food as fuel: eating contests
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It's an annual event that many of us watch with morbid fascination: Nathan's hot dog eating contest on Coney Island. Adding to the festivities this year were performers from Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus. They have pitched a tent nearby for a month with their traveling Boom a Ring show (see: http://www.ringling.com/TourSchedule.aspx?action=details&engagementId=101066 for the schedule.)
Now back to the hot dogs. Entertainment is fun. Eating can sometimes be entertaining, but food is fuel for your body. Some types of fuel are better than others. Fresh fruits and vegetables are nutritionally dense but have fewer calories than processed foods like hot dogs. Hot dogs are not "bad" foods, but a plain hot dog and bun has about 300 calories. This year's winner--Joey Chestnut--at 68 hodogs. A little math and we discover he ate about 20,000 calories in 10 minutes. That's entertainment. It is also rather scary in light of the weight problem in the U.S.
Visit www.competitiveeaters.com to see a list of annual eating contests. Would you be surprised to see tacos, meatballs, chili, chocolate chip cookies, burgers, and pastrami on the list? Probably not. Yes these are calorically-dense foods. But there actually was a strawberry eating contest in Delaplane, Virginia back in May. The winner--Tom Gilbert--ate 7.6 pounds of strawberries. 1 oz. of strawberries has about 8 calories, so again a little math and we discover he ate about 975 calories.
An average 200 pound person would burn 900 calories running for one hour at 6 miles per hour (10 minute miles). the strawberry eating contest winner could burn off his record in a little over an hour. The hot dog eating contest winner has a long way to go.
Food as fuel? Food for thought.
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