How can competitive eaters digest and eat all that food in one sitting?
In: Biology
In a TV interview, I heard one the competitive hot dog eaters admit that people routinely throw up after a contest.
Your stomach is a muscular organ and is able to expand and shrink based on use. Competitive eaters train to expand their stomachs to hold more food.
Also when you eat the food is held and broken down by acids in your stomach for hours before it passes through your intestines to be actually digested. This means that technically the competitive eaters are probably not digesting anything during the meal.
This is how [Takeru Kobayashi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeru_Kobayashi#Training_and_techniques), one of the most famous competitive eaters, does it:
>Kobayashi expands his stomach for a competition by eating larger and larger amounts of food, and then exercises to ensure that fat will not impede expansion of his stomach during a competition.
>…
>Kobayashi is also known for his trademark body wiggle, referred to by some as the “Kobayashi Shake”, to force food down his esophagus and settle more compactly in his stomach. He eats hot dogs by splitting the frankfurter in half, dipping the buns in water, and then stuffing both parts in his mouth. He calls this the Solomon Method.
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