Rachael Davis
Food challenges are a bizarre… sport? Pursuit? Pastime?
Whatever category they fall into, there’s an unending appetite for watching people shovel troughloads of food in their mouths, whether that’s via mukbangs on YouTube or turning up to a local fair to watch food-smashing athletes compete to see who can do the most damage to their guts.
As with many maximalist pursuits, it’s a particularly popular activity in America. In 2023, one sausage-pounding athlete by the name of Joey Chestnut won his 16th Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest by hoovering up 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes.
He had previously set the world record in 2021 with 76 hot dogs devoured over the same timespan.
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If you've got a strong stomach, you can watch it all unfold here.
"Most people relate to feeling really bloated and tired after Thanksgiving," he told Business Insider.
"It's kind of like that, except really, really bad."
"People have told me they can smell the hot dogs. I really can't, but the sweat afterward, it feels sticky and greasy. My girlfriend says it smells different."
What a lucky lady.
The feat saw Chestnut feeling exhausted and thirsty as his body battled to process the sizeable portion of hyper-processed ‘meat’.
He had a big sleep afterwards, to say the least. Other ‘big’ things he might have had in the bathroom went undisclosed.
To prepare for these competitions, Chestnut sticks to a pre-match routine of only consuming water and lemon in the two days before an event.
After wolfing down the grub, he said he usually goes back to feeling normal after around 10 hours.
"It's hard on the body, there's no way around it," he said, forgetting that there’s a very good way around it: don’t eat 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes, let alone in a single day. Or even a week. A month? Two hot dogs a day still doesn’t sound like a champion diet.
His 16th win at Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest wasn’t the only thing to make headlines at the event, with a protestor taking to the stage with a sign that read 'Expose Smithfield's Deathstar'.
This was in reference to Smithfield Foods, the pork producer behind Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs.
Chestnut, presumably feeling a little grouchy as his stomach battled not to split in half, allegedly grabbed the protestor by the throat and pulled him away. This dude certainly doesn’t do things by halves, does he?
“Picture this: you’re 17 hot dogs in and you get bumped by someone,” said one person opining on the event.
“Your killer instinct kicks in, you break the guy's neck…and then go on to eat 40+ additional hot dogs like nothing happened. How is he not considered the greatest athlete of our generation?”
Another added: “We will never see another person like this. Appreciate him AMERICA.”
Truly the greatest nation on Earth.
Unfortunately, Joey Chestnut was banned from defending his title in 2024 due to his partnership with Impossible Foods, a Nathan's competitor.
His stomach was presumably very pleased with the news.