7. Eric Booker
Looking at four-hundred-pound Booker, you might surmise that he can put away a great deal of food, including four pounds of corned beef hash in less than two minutes. But you probably wouldn’t guess that he practices judo. You might be surprised that he was on an episode of Wife Swap. And you definitely wouldn’t know that he’s made no less than four rap albums—Hungry and Focused, I–IV—inspired by the sport. “I’m like Lance Armstrong when he mounts a bike,” he raps. “I’m no joke with a fork and a knife.” And somehow he accomplishes all this while working full-time as a subway conductor in New York. Here’s a man whose appetite for accomplishment is as big as his appetite for food.
Thanks to stations like ESPN, which now cover competitions like the Nathan’s one, what might’ve started in our caveman days (according to the IFOCE) has now become an international sport. Today’s eaters compete for everything from money to titles to nothing but the joy of knowing they’re the best at what they do. The IFOCE turned competitive eating into a bona fide industry in 1997, setting rules for what liquids are okay to use and even for how much vomit disqualifies a competitor. (Ew.) And lest you’re aghast at the sheer volume of waste such events must generate, here’s some food for thought: many of them raise money for charity in the process. It’s nice to know that some good can come from shoveling in mass quantities of oysters or tamales.
