Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Golden Plunger Awards (3 page)

Did we say sport? You bet we did. Nathan’s hot dog–eating contest is broadcast on ESPN, and the competition is overseen by the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE), whose contests are supervised and have strict rules:

In the 2007 contest, Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, of San Jose, California, scored a major upset against six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi of Japan. Chestnut, a relative newcomer to the competitive eating field, has managed to become a major player in just a few years. Not only did he win in 2007, but he also set a new world record: 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. In 2008, he claimed top honors in two other contests: 78 matzo balls in 8 minutes in Houston, Texas, and 241 chicken wings in the Wing Bowl (held before
the Super Bowl) in Philadelphia. In all, he holds 16 world records in competitive eating, from waffles to pulled pork to asparagus, and is currently the top-ranked gurgitator—that’s what contest participants are called in the field.

Chestnut isn’t the only hungry champion to make a name for himself. Sonya “the Black Widow” Thomas of Virginia is currently ranked fifth in the world and holds the record for women in the Nathan’s Famous hot dog-eating contest (37 hot dogs in 12 minutes). At 5’5” and weighing just 100 pounds, Sonya holds several world records:

That’s a lot of food for such a small person. The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that physically active women between 31 and 50 years of age should have from 2,000 to 2,200 calories a day. A Nathan’s Famous hot dog has 309 calories, meaning Thomas had 11,433 calories on the day she ate 37 of them (or nearly a week’s worth of calories in one meal). Thomas says that she thinks she can handle up to 18 pounds of food and liquid overall and that her body digests her large feasts in 8 to 12 hours. She maintains that she doesn’t get sick after a contest.

In the sport of competitive eating, as moderated by IFOCE, timing is key. Events are monitored, and the battle is over in a set amount of time. But amateur eating contests go on all over the world, usually sponsored by restaurants, and they often don’t limit contestants on time. For their troubles, the eaters usually get the meal free—and sometimes a T-shirt. Consider these (there are thousands more):

A note from Uncle John: Anyone thinking of trying one of these contests would do well to remember that health professionals also recommend against it. Consuming so many calories isn’t healthy, they say; plus choking and damaging the stomach by overfilling it are risks.

Food-eating records range from some delicious foods to some truly questionable choices. Ukrainian gurgitator Oleg Zhornitskiy once ate 128 ounces of mayonnaise in eight minutes. Don Lerman indulged in seven quarter-pound sticks of butter; he also ate 120 jalapeño peppers in 15 minutes and seven pounds of cow brains (in a different contest, which he didn’t win). Yum.

Diet Scams

In 1866, the Fat Man’s Club of Connecticut was formed for tubby guys to show off. If you could afford to gain weight, you must be doing something right. But by 1903, the club had to close. In just 37 years, American eating habits had changed so much that weight gain was no longer seen as a status symbol of the wealthy. That opened the door for the diet scam industry to gain prominence in the nation.

A rush on diet products ensued at the turn of the century, and pills were particularly popular. Pills promising rapid weight loss hit the market, and even though they were largely viewed as “snake-oil” treatments, they were popular with overweight Americans for decades. It was easier to market fad pills and drinks in the early part of the 20th century because there was no effective Food and Drug Administration oversight until 1930. Prior to that, there was an agency that would become the FDA (it had been established by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906), but it was severely hampered by poorly written laws.

In the 1930s, dinitrophenol—previously used to make dyes and explosives, and also an ingredient in weed killers—was introduced in pill form as a diet aid. Approximately 100,000 people tried it out. So many deaths and injuries were attributed to the drug that it was banned in 1933 by the FDA. Even so, the drug found a
home on the black market—particularly in image-conscious Los Angeles—despite the fact that it had been linked to blindness, cataracts, nerve damage, heart disease, and death.

Probably the most famous rumor associated with diet pills is that they had tapeworms inside them. It especially gained popularity in the 1950s, but there is no evidence that tapeworms were used in a pill available then. However, there is some evidence that between 1900 and 1920, tapeworms were included in diet pills and that those early ads resurfaced in the 1950s, giving credence to the rumor. (Web sites that debunk rumors also note that verifying whether or not tapeworms were actually included in these early pills is still difficult because ads for early medical miracle cures often contained false claims.)

In America alone, 50 million people go on a diet every year. More than 15 percent of those people—about 8 million—try to do it in a structured program with supervision. The only real solution is simple: eat fewer calories, exercise more, and lose weight. Nevertheless, if someone offers a way to avoid a sacrifice that dieters don’t want to make, people have a tendency to believe less-than-logical explanations. As one person said, “I think it’s enticing. It’s the microwave effect—you want to have instant results.” And it’s just that attitude that fuels the diet industry, which rakes in about $40 billion per year from Americans alone.

The following are typical diet scams:

The Federal Trade Commission monitors weight-loss scams and false claims. Its Web site lists several warning signs of diet scams:

Despite this, ads for weight-loss scams regularly appear on TV and in magazines, with most promising at least one of these results. Let’s back up a second here. Weight-loss earrings? Say that again?

It’s true. Companies sell magnetic earrings that supposedly work on pressure points around the ear to stimulate weight loss. Eyeglasses and other products that hang on the ear are also available. Not surprisingly, no measurable weight-loss results have ever been recorded from these in any scientific tests.

Thousands of years ago, our ancestors ate a very different diet. Grains, fruits, vegetables, and meats, for the most part, along with nuts and other legumes, were the norm. They didn’t need to be put on a diet. But if someone had tried to sell them magnetic earrings . . . well, they probably might have fallen for it, too.

South Dakota’s Corn Palace

The town fathers of Mitchell, South Dakota, wanted to showcase the agricultural richness of their region to attract more settlers. Their idea: “corn palace”—a large building decorated with corn and other locally grown grains. The Corn Palace
has
succeeded in bringing tourists to South Dakota—as many as half a million annually—but there aren’t any statistics on how many people stayed because of the building’s grainy glory.

The original Palace was built in 1892, but it took two more attempts to get the right-sized structure. The third and current building was built in 1921 and is located right on Main Street. The actual structure isn’t made of corn; its foundation and walls are reinforced concrete. In the 1930s, architects added back the Moorish-inspired minarets and columns of the early palaces, making the whole thing look like something out of
The Arabian Nights
. Every June the corn, rye, and dock are torn off and the walls redecorated with locally grown corn. And it’s those fresh corn murals that draw the crowds.

Farmers in Mitchell grow tons of maize every year, and the crop, often called “Prairie Gold,” rules the town. The local radio station’s call letters are KORN, and the town’s high-school team is the Kernels. And plus, the locals are so serious about their
corny Palace that they’ve failed to decorate it only twice in 116 years:

The 2008 Corn Palace mural designer, Cherie Ramsdell, an Assistant Professor of Art at Dakota Wesleyan University, has been choosing themes and sketching “corn by numbers” art since 2003. Themes have included “Everyday Heroes,” “Lewis and Clark,” “Youth in Action,” “South Dakota Birds,” and “Space Exploration.”

Once the murals’ sketches are done, transferred to tar paper, and tacked to the concrete, construction begins. The initial design work starts in the spring, and installation begins in the summer. Common colors or shades of corn used in the designs: red, brown, black, blue, white, orange, calico, yellow, and even green. The assembly is a precision job: each corncob is carefully sliced in half with a power saw, the two halves are trimmed with hand axes as necessary for detail work, and finally, they are nailed in place.

While corn is king, other grains are also used: wheat, rye, and sorghum. All this material doesn’t come cheap: it costs $130,000 each year for the thousands of bushels of grain and 100,000 corncobs. But the decoration costs are made back during August’s Corn Palace Week, which celebrates the end of the harvest. Once Corn Palace Week is over, local fauna are allowed to feast on the building, giving the Corn Palace the unusual designation of being the world’s largest birdfeeder.