You Can't Make This Stuff Up....

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On July 4th, I posted a story about Nathan's Annual Hot Dog eating contest, and how serious competitive eating has become.

These professional chow hounds have strict training regimens; collective bargaining agreements; agents and a professional eating league.

Apparently they have truly made it to the big time...needing top legal counsel as well. Ex-hot dog eating champ, Takeru Kobayashi (see photo insert) was taken into custody for crashing the Independence Day gourmand competition - click here for the CNN.com story about the arrest.

Kobayashi was banned from participating that day due a contractual dispute with Major League Eating - too bad he couldn't eat his contractual words! Regardless, I'm sure he ate well in the NYPD lockup.

Food for Thought as We Grill Away this July 4th Holiday

More than 100,000 spectators crammed a Coney Island intersection this weekend to watch a handful of competitive eaters cram fistfuls of hot dogs and buns into their mouths.

Sponsored by Nathan’s Hot Dogs, this annual glutton-a-thon takes place every July 4th. This year’s winner was Joey Chestnut (see photo) who ate 54 hot dogs and rolls in 10 minutes time, averaging nearly 5.5 dogs every 60 seconds.

This marked the fourth straight win for Chestnut who also holds the world record for hot dog eating with 68 dogs and rolls in 10 minutes. For perspective, that’s more than 20,000 calories in 10 minutes, which is boggling when you consider that, according to ESPN3, multi-gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps consumers 12,000 calories a day when training for The Olympics.