Joey Chestnut, 41, who is 6’1”, surprisingly only 230 pounds, and a personification of gluttony, won the Nathan‘s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, which was located at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York City, on July 4. He defeated last year’s champion, Patrick Bertoletti, 40, who wolfed down paltry 46.5 hot dogs.” Chesnut received a prize of $10,000 by consuming 70.5 hot dogs with lukewarm buns and quick but frequent gulps of water within the ten-minute time limit.
Chesnut missed his world record of 83 hotdogs he established in 2021.
This all occurred in front of 40,000 screaming excited fans as broadcasted live on ESPN2 at 12:30 PM (ET) after the women’s unladylike contest at noon. It has been estimated that Chestnut has consumed at least “1,284.5 hot dogs in 20 career appearances at the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest” since 2005, which could possibly take years off his life.
It strongly appears that Chestnut along with the fourteen other contestants must have a genetic predisposition to stomach expandability and superior organ digestion or at least non-failure without risking a tragic coma or even death. However, I am not a physician, and he is clearly not an athlete just because he can inhumanely consume such vast amounts of hot dogs despite ESPN’s desperate need for “sports” programming, which is owned by Walt Disney and Hearst Communications.
I normally do not eat hot dogs because of their high saturated fat content regardless of brand. For example, a Nathan‘s Famous Hot Dog frankfurter has 5 mg of saturated fat and 20 mg of cholesterol, which are both relatively high. However, each hot dog has 410 mg (see Nutrition Facts) of sodium, which is extremely high if consumed in gargantuan quantities.
Last Saturday Chestnut consumed an unbelievable total of 28,905 mg of sodium (410 mg x 70.5 = 28,905), which must have been very difficult on his kidneys and blood pressure not to mention risking a perforated colon from massive overeating. His overconsumption of hot dogs must be a gastroenterologist’s or internal medicine doctor’s worst nightmare.
I cannot imagine consuming 70.5 hotdogs within ten minutes. Surely, that amount of sodium cannot be good for the heart, liver, stomach, or any other internal organ. That is pure common sense.
Other reasons I avoid hot dogs is because they are a highly processed food high in possible carcinogenic sodium nitrates, and sodium nitrites and low in nutrients. Plus, a hot Polish sausage tastes much better if eaten once in a while in my opinion.
If I do eat an occasional hot dog at home, I prefer to eat a kosher all-beef one with mustard and hot horseradish mustard on a lukewarm microwaved whole-wheat bun along with a cold Coke Zero. However, if I am at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore watching an evening Orioles’ game, I might indulge in one hot dog along with a cold Pepsi and bottled water along with a low-calorie snack.
Unfortunately, obesity is a serious public health problem throughout the U.S. I suspect that two major causes of this widespread public health problem among a myriad of others is due to a lack of physical exercise and especially the deadly sin of gluttony, which plagues our country.
Every July 4th since 1972 I cringe and have become disgusted when I have read or watched the television highlights of Joey Chesnut win another eating contest at Nathan‘s or elsewhere in the U.S.
This contest sets an extremely bad example for the moderate consumption of junk food in the U.S. I just hope that a gastrointestinal surgeon or an ambulance was on call last July 4th at Nathan’s in case of either a stroke, heart attack, or other serious ailment from Chesnut’s gluttonous consumption of 70.5 hot dogs.
I also hope that a local hospital is located nearby in case of an emergency operation or procedure to save a contestant’s life. However, any bill from the hospital or rescue squad should be on the contestant’s dime in my opinion due to stupidity.
In my opinion, Joey Chesnut is the personification of gluttony in the U.S. despite his non-corpulence. He should not be considered a celebrity depicted on magazine covers and news broadcasts let alone ESPN, which is depicted as a faux disgusting “sport.”
Chestnut would have made the psychopathic Emperor Caligula (12-41 AD) and other degenerate Roman aristocrats proud today. If they were alive, I am certain that they or their slaves would be more than eager to participate in the tremendous amounts of gluttony instead of eating in moderation along with a nearby vomitorium or purging room in order to eat even more food.
Nathan‘s Famous Hotdog Eating Contest has absolutely nothing to do with July 4, 1776. Our Founding Fathers would have been appalled because gluttony has never been a virtue but a vice and sin because of the inevitable purging.
What happened at Nathan’s last Saturday reflects the increasing secularization and commercialization of our July 4th holiday, which falsely commemorated the 254th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1776.
Robert L. Maronic