Eating for Fun and Profit

Lately I’ve been hearing about Joey Chestnutt. He’s a professional competitive eater. Now there’s a booth you won’t see at the next job fair you go to.
Chestnutt was in the news recently because he won a contest on the Fourth of July by eating 72 Nathan’s hotdogs in 10 minutes. Think about it. Seventy–two hotdogs — and buns — comes to nine packages of hotdogs in 10 minutes time that went down his throat. That’s a package of eight hotdogs a minute! It’s 20,160 calories, 1,296 grams of fat, 2,160 mg of cholesterol, 56,160 mg of sodium, and 720 g of protein.
Joey Chestnutt won $10,000 for 10 minutes’ work. Some internet sources say his net worth is $800,000. He’s 33 years old and holds a degree in civil engineering. I guess he figured he needed something to fall back on in case this eating thing doesn’t work out.
He is not overweight. He conditions himself for competitive eating by fasting and stretching his stomach with milk, water and protein supplements. His weight varies between 225-240 pounds and he’s 6 feet, one inch tall. When he’s not competing he eats mostly vegetables, fish and chicken.
Since 2005, Chesnutt has traveled all over beating other competitive eaters at gobbling up hotdogs; he’s won the annual Nathan’s contest several times. He’s also competitively scarfed down 6.3 pounds of deep fried asparagus in 11 minutes; 32.5 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes; 182 chicken wings in 30 minutes; 15 pounds of shrimp in 8 minutes; 78 matzoh balls in 8 minutes; 70 bratwursts in 10 minutes; 141 hard boiled eggs in 8 minutes; and 55 4-ounce mutton sandwiches in 10 minutes. He even chugged a gallon of milk in 41 seconds.
There’s much, much more but I’m getting queasy just reading about it.
I have to wonder though, why? Chestnutt says it’s the challenge and the competition that attracts him. Couldn’t he play tennis instead? Or poker? Does he have an eating disorder only with an audience attached? I hope he is investing his money well, because when (not if) he develops gastrointestinal problems as he gets older, he’s going to need it.
One thing for sure though. Kids, if your mom tells you to finish your lunch because kids in Africa are starving, you can tell her, “No worries. Joey Chestnutt already took care of it.”