Competitive eater Darrien Thomas eats 24 hotdogs in under ten minutes during a training session at his home in Bowmanville, Ont., on June 2. He dips the hotdog buns in water before consuming them in order to prevent his mouth from drying out.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Darrien Thomas was 16 years old at his first eating contest. The Orillia, Ont., native remembers standing in a sea of 200 people in Barrie ready to watch the godfather of professional-eating Takeru Kobayashi annihilate as many cheese pizzas as possible. One of the contestants was a no-show that day and Thomas filled the void. He managed to eat 3½ pizzas but was no match for Kobayashi who inhaled about 10 large pizzas and won $3,000.
What started out as a bit of a lark has now turned seriously competitive. Thomas won an amateur poutine-eating competition, Smoke’s Poutinerie showdown, in 2017. The victory prompted Major League Eating to invite Thomas to compete as a professional eater on their circuit. The 25-year-old has become one of Canada’s best eaters and is currently ranked 12th in the world and will be competing at his third Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on Thursday in New York as the only Canadian to qualify this year, and the second Canadian ever to qualify for Nathan’s since it started in 1916.
He’s hoping to beat his personal best of 34½ hot dogs at the competition.
“I love going to events and pushing myself. I want to win an actual championship. That’s something I keep on working toward,” Thomas said. “The more time you spend competitively eating you get used to it, your body knows what that feeling is and you learn different techniques to get the food down.”
Darrien Thomas holds some of the nine trophies he has earned at his home in Bowmanville on June 21. Mr. Thomas began his competitive eating career at 16 when he was plucked from the audience at an event he was attending, and managed to consume three large pizzas. He will be vying to win the $10,000 grand prize in the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in New York on July 4.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Missing at this year’s contest is hot dog-eating legend Joey Chestnut. The American champion eater who they call “Jaws” has won 16 Nathan’s competitions since 2007 but has chosen to represent another hot dog brand and won’t participate. In 2021, he set the record for the most hot dogs consumed in 10 minutes with 76. Matt Stonie was the last person not named Chestnut to win it in 2015 with 62 hot dogs.
Over the past 20 years, professional eating has evolved. Elite eaters used to be that guy you saw at the buffet – a heavy-set, husky-looking man with an appetite – and was considered the pin-up boy for eating contests. Now those physiques are rare. There’s been a shift toward more athletic figures who adopt strict training regimes, who prepare their bodies for capacity, volumes of food consumption and endurance.
Richard Shea, president and co-founder of MLE who’s worked with Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest since the late 1990s, said the contest has become increasingly cutthroat and is largely viewed as the Super Bowl of eating competitions.
“It wasn’t something people focused on years ago. It was more of a curiosity. Someone could eat 20 hot dogs and that was a big deal. It was a rite of passage,” Shea said. “But more people are doing it now, competitors are refining their skills, there’s more exposure on TV and more prize money.”
The Nathan’s competition is not ticketed but Shea said the local authorities in Coney Island estimate that 40,000 people will fill the streets to watch on Thursday, and it will reach one million households on ESPN.
Mr. Thomas prepares a stack of 24 hotdogs and multiple cups of water in preparation for a training session at his home in Bowmanville as his two-year-old daughter Alaya watches.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
“We were always saying we were a sport and getting on ESPN validated that,” Shea said. “It’s supposed to be ballyhoo on the 4th, but also the competitors themselves definitely take it seriously and deserve a lot of credit for what happens on stage once you put the pomp and circumstance away.”
Thomas, who stands at 5 foot 8 and is 155 pounds, has carved out a niche as a technical eater. While eating hot dogs requires downing the meat and a soaking wet bun in a rapid-fire action, other foods such as crayfish involve technique as well as speed. Earlier this year he finished in second place at two different contests where he ate 56 ears of corn in 12 minutes and 221 pistachios in eight minutes, a feat that also required Thomas to remove the shells.
If you ask any professional eater, they will tell you that Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest is the mecca of food-eating competitions. Derek Henderickson from Las Vegas, who’s ranked eighth in the world and will be competing at his fourth Nathan’s contest, said he didn’t feel like a real competitor until he got to Nathan’s.
“You have to qualify for it. You earn it. And you’re going against the greats. Everyone associates competitive eating with hot dogs and Joey Chestnut at Nathans,” Hendrickson said. “It’s very hard to win these contests. It’s an actual sport. You have to train daily.”
Joel Hansen, 28, from Toronto, is one of the more accomplished Canadian professional eaters, having completed 700 food challenges and 50 contests since 2018. His YouTube videos – such as his impossible Texas steak challenge where he tried to eat 11.5 pounds of smoked prime rib – enough to serve 50 guests – often reach an audience of four or five million. The full-time food influencer hasn’t competed at Nathan’s because of contract restrictions but is motivated to help and inspire others by posting these videos.
“It’s not about eating large amounts of food. It’s about achieving the goal. It’s about being competitive and having a means of exerting themselves,” Hansen said. “Your average Thanksgiving meal might net a pound and a half of food. Imagine eating 10 times that? Your organs have to shift. Very few people will do what it takes.”
Hansen said if you want to succeed, it takes extreme effort, dedication and sacrifice. He likened it to training to be a 400-metre Olympic runner where you are pushing the limits; he’s trying to expand his stomach to levels where it feels like it might rip.
The health risks that come along with professional eating have been well documented. Pro-eaters have talked openly about how they react after large consumptions of food: lack of sleep, stomach overheating, dehydration and stress on major organs.
Even during training sessions, excessive water intake designed to stretch the stomach walls so it can hold more food can dilute electrolytes in the blood, in particular sodium; an imbalance in sodium can lead to seizures, reported Marc Levine of the University of Pennsylvania, who conducted a study on comparing stomachs between professional and non-professional eaters. A 2007 study published in the American Journal of Roentgenology focused on the impact of speed eating. It concluded that professional eaters could develop morbid obesity, gastroparesis – which slows the movement of food from your stomach to your small intestine – and have parts of the stomach removed.
Mr. Thomas takes part in a training session at his home as his partner Alexis Patterson and daughter Alaya keep time.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Shea said MLE discourages training at home for professional eaters.
“We can’t dictate what they do in their own time. But we do encourage eaters to use our contests because we have paramedics and EMTs in place,” he said. “Even if we were to go to a television morning show to do a one-minute pudding demonstration, we always have medical teams in place.”
Thomas is one of the more experienced eaters now. He’s been able to learn from the best and knows what his limits are which allows him to prepare for competitions. In his Bowmanville backyard late one recent Friday night, he set up a table for a mock run of Nathan’s where he timed his run, dunking hot dog buns in water, eating 30 hot dogs and making sure he’s ready to battle at Coney Island.
“I’m just below those top five eaters. There’s something that I’m just not doing that they’re doing that I have to figure out,” Thomas said. “I don’t expect myself to win it this year but if it ever happens it would be a crazy experience.”