Feeding Frenzy

"I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse."

Whenever, I hear some horse's ass whinny those words I wish someone would wheel out a hunk of meat with a horseshoe still attached. As the person sat eyeballing their Clydesdale drumstick, I'd like to be behind them with a little whip, cracking them on the hind quarters while saying "C'mon, giddyup. You ordered it, now eat it. Yeeha!"

Sure, the popular phrase has been around for years to describe an appetite that seems larger than life. But in the end, they never eat one slice of Secretariat because it's never on the menu. Even if it was, no one would be able to physically eat the entire horse. These blowhards couldn't even take a dent out of a shetland pony. Most people would struggle to eat a whole chicken, which wouldn't even fill a horse's saddlebag halfway.

I've always believed you should put your money (or food, in this case) where your mouth is when it comes to any type of bragging. Now that the International Federation of Competitive Eating has been formed, I hope the eating equine line is never heard in their circles. Because these freaks wouldn't just eat the horses. They'd eat the jockeys as appetizers.

The IFOCE is the sanctioning body for people who gorge themselves in contests. The league even has world rankings, similar to boxing. It's too bad the only ear-nibbling IFOCE recognizes is for corn, or Mike Tyson might have been ranked in boxing and eating.

Takeru Kobayashi (little guy on the right) is the Tiger Woods of competitve eating, ranked No. 1 in the world. He only weighs 132 pounds, but he ate his way to The Glutton Bowl title 3 years ago on FOX. No one can touch him in hot dogs - He ate 53 1/2 in 12 minutes. He also ate 57 cow brains in 15 minutes, and that wasn't even on Fear Factor.

Then there's tiny Sonya Thomas (pictured above to left of Kobayashi and right), a 105-pound Burger King manager from Virginia. Looking at her frail frame, you'd think she would "hit the wall" halfway through a Whopper Jr.

Instead, she's ranked No. 2 in the world, thanks to finishing first in 22 recognized contests by the IFOCE. She's eaten 25 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes, 80 chicken nuggets in 5 minutes, 65 hard-boiled eggs in under 7 minutes, and the ridiculous list goes on.

Thomas calls herself the Black Widow. I have no idea if she has a red hourglass on her abdomen, but her bite is definitely dangerous. She says the reason for the Black Widow name is because she "loves to eliminate the males" from IFOCE events. The way Thomas eats, maybe she really got the nickname because she mated, killed, then devoured 3 husbands in 20 minutes. Then eliminating males takes on a whole new meaning.

Where does this food go, for crying out loud? If she wore a colostomy bag, she'd probably look like an upright vacuum cleaner after one of her contests. I don't know how this itsy bitsy spider woman digests it all naturally.

This lady pounded down almost 15 pounds of fruitcake in 10 minutes. That means she ate one-seventh of her body weight in fruitcake!

The Black Widow also ate 8.4 pounds of baked beans in 2 minutes, 47 seconds. I'm guessing a few hours later, she also set the record for longest sustained fart at 4 minutes, 12 seconds.

In other IFOCE news, Donald Lerman ate 7 quarter pound sticks of butter in 5 minutes. He didn't even spread it on toast or corn on the cob. He stuffed those sticks down his throat straight-up. State fairs should go on alert and lock down any butter sculptures in case Lerman shows up.

Richard LeFevre ate 1.5 gallons of chili in 10 minutes. When he went to the bathroom the next day, he probably had to call the bomb squad in for backup.

With the T-Rex extinct, these IFOCE people are at the top of the food chain. Lions run away from them like big pussies. Hungry wolves roll over and play dead. Even Jaws would be the Black Widow's bitch.

I'd steer clear of these folks, too. You'd never want to put a hand too close to their dish. They "train" for events by gorging at buffets multiple times daily to "stretch out" their stomachs. Then they compete for prize money, sometimes over $20,000, to see who can eat like the biggest pig.

This makes me wonder what's next? Now that we have competitive eating, is the SABL (Snarf and Barf League) far behind? There could be two potential winners - the best snarfer and the best barfer. Maybe one of those teensy Olsen twins could sweep the all-around title.

I wish I could compete and make some money using my killer appetite, but I think I'd be the Tampa Bay Devil Rays of the IFOCE. I can eat a shitload of food, but I'd be a bottom feeder against the likes of Kobayashi and the Black Widow.

Despite my size - I'm 6-foot-3 and 329 pounds- I think the Black Widow could gobble me up like a 55-gallon drum of jambalaya in any speed-eating race. She'd need to give me a 10 grilled cheese handicap to make it interesting, but she'd still be the chowtime champ in the end.

I wouldn't fit in the IFOCE anyway. I have some basic fundamental issues with the league rules. I'm more of a food-eating purist. If there's a hot dog eating contest, those fuckers better be loaded down with relish, onions, mustard and maybe sauerkraut. Then you should eat the hot dog like you would at a ballgame. None of this bullshit like Kabayashi pulls, jerking his weiners out of the buns, so he can dip them in glasses of water to shrink the bread. If the line isn't drawn now, will Kobayashi put the 50 hot dogs in a blender next time so he can chug them with a gigantic beer bong?

The only food contest I could foresee dipping being allowed would be Oreos (milk allowed), tortilla chips (salsa, cheese or bean dip allowed), and maybe ice cream cones (fudge dipping station like DQ has allowed).

The stats of what these people have eaten is staggering: 161 buffalo wings in 12 minutes, 331 crawfish in 6 minutes, 49 glazed donuts in 9 minutes, 69 Krystal burgers in 8 minutes, 21 baseball-sized Matso balls in 5:25, and 6 pounds of SPAM in 12 minutes, etc. This information makes me want to guzzle a quart of Pepto Bismol in 10 seconds, and confirms the safest place for me in the world of competitive eating is on the sidelines.

If I ever get the chance to meet The Black Widow in person, I might watch my mouth more than hers. Because there are two words you probably should never say to her: "Eat me."