Hooray for America and grab the Pepto-Bismol®.

40,000 onlookers in Coney Island cheered Joey “Jaws” Chestnut at Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating championship, as he gorged his way into the history books of consumption winning his seventh consecutive competition by scarfing 69 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, a new world record.

BTW he also held the old record of 68. Is he (Pardon the expression) a hero?

As an overweight nation, we’ve been counting calories, but we applaud a man who shoves more pork by-product in his mouth in 10 minutes than a Bavarian festival grills in a weekend.

After consuming 20,010 calories Chestnut was then heard to say “I’m not eating another hot dog for at least 4 hours.”

We are a nation of conspicuous consumption and we live by the terms more, better, bigger and faster. We take home an aluminum foil swan of our leftovers as a temporary keepsake of our gluttony.

Just as we slow down and cannot avert our eyes at an accident on the road, we watch reality shows like Man V. Food and live vicariously through Adam Richman’s voracious appetite as he jams copious amounts of food in his yap.

We hang on every second that tics by, until he ‘wins’ or ‘bursts’. We’d like to see him burst because that would also satisfy our thirst to watch dysfunctional behavior on TV.
Nathan’s contest has occurred each July 4th in Coney Island, NY since 1916, and if all the hot dogs used were laid end to end it would reach the steps of the national food and Drug Administration in Washington DC where 47 Congressmen would proclaim “National By-Product Day”

Oh, and Matt “Megatoad” Stonie shoveled 51 weiners and thanked a ‘Higher Authority’ for at least coming in second.