What's Next? Fantasy Leagues?

The following is the first of an occasional 2009 series looking at how the traditional "Seven Deadly Sins" play in today's world.

If there is one sin (from the official Seven Deadly Sins) of which I am recently guilty, it's Gluttony. I mean really. We're already two weeks removed from the end of the six-week holiday period between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, and I'm still considering submitting "bloated" as a new color suggestion to the Crayola people; I see it as a rather unhealthy hue of pink and green. Unlike the other six sins (SLOTH, PRIDE, ENVY, WRATH, LUST, and GREED), which take only thought - or little-to-no action - to commit, Gluttony requires excessive participation.

I found my favorite definition of Gluttony in Wikipedia: the "...over-consumption of food, drink, or intoxicants to the point of waste." Think about that. It's a sin that actually requires you to act to such an extreme degree, the word "waste" is part of the definition. This led me to ask, "What does '...to the point of waste' actually mean?"

Maybe this is some kind of subconscious rationalization on my part, but I don't see where overindulgence at a holiday dinner table is wasteful. Besides, my eating habits in the hours leading up to my Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were different from normal days. Usually, I eat an early breakfast and lunch, followed by a good dinner; but on those two holidays, I ate a light breakfast later in the morning and skipped lunch entirely in anticipation of dinner. So really, I wasn't wasteful with my eating at all; I simply back-loaded my overall daily intake.

Okay. Maybe the rationalization isn't so subconscious after all.

Still, I'm not sure if I was truly gluttonous. I didn't actually measure the volume of food I ate, but even with two large servings, I didn't break any records, like...

...6.91 pounds of roast turkey meat eaten in 8 minutes.
...2.71 pounds of green beans eaten in 6 minutes.
...13.23 pounds (yes, 13.23 pounds) of jellied cranberry sauce eaten in 8 minutes.

It's true. The volume of traditional holiday food and the time it took to eat it, both listed above, are actual documented records.

It turns out that this type of Gluttony is called "Competitive Eating," and it has its roots in New York. Nearly every Fourth of July weekend for the last 90 years, the world has been treated to the intestinal exploits of men and women who gorge themselves on Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs in Coney Island. I always thought this annual ritual was something steeped in decades of tradition, harkening back to a simpler time when electricity was for fancy people and men wore funny hats. I thought that modern-day participants were simply carrying on tradition for tradition's sake, regardless of how ridiculous the tradition seemed, or how meaningless the outcome was; kind of like the annual Groundhog Day festivities, but with six more weeks of antacid.

Silly me.

This event, and countless others like it, are brought to you...ad nauseum...by the International Federation Of Competitive Eating and Major League Eating. They are the fine folks encouraging, promoting, and recording all things Competitive Eating, including 100+ competitive eating records (like those above), competitor rankings, an online store, and even a competitive eating video game.

What do we make of this? What do we make of the oversight of, encouragement of, celebration of, and capitalization on the ability of one person to take a mere five minutes to consume 1.75 pounds of...butter? You read that right. Someone ate seven quarter-pound sticks of butter in less time than it takes most people to run a mile. I can see the bumper sticker on his parents' car now: MY CHILD CAN EAT MORE BUTTER THAN YOUR HONOR STUDENT

Is this Gluttony to the extreme? It sounds like it, but far be it from me to accuse anyone of committing a sin. I'm no more free from sin than the next person...and the next person happens to be the person with whom I've committed a few of those sins. (Thank you, Baby.) Each person in this world has their own maker to reconcile with - or no maker at all - so I leave that reflection to each individual, duo, or group, surely to be done once the buffet table closes. (Actual record for buffet food: 5 1/2 pounds in 12 minutes)

Is this waste to the extreme? It sounds like it, but far be it from me to suggest that any food consumed and NOT regurgitated is wasted. However, if you must speak of waste, try not to do so from your Hummer while driving to buy the hundreds of chicken wings you need for the Super Bowl party you plan to host to show off those 105 glorious flat screen inches you treated yourself to for Christmas. (Actual record for chicken wings: 7 1/2 pounds in 12 minutes)

Is this uncontrolled-need-for-competition to the extreme? It sounds like it...at least, it sounded like it until I lost my concentration when the guy who cut me off to steal my spot in the parking lot also sneered at me inside the minimarket when he picked the quicker checkout line to buy the last of the chili cheese fries. Competition in our society seems to have become less about sport and more about superiority. (Actual record for chili cheese fries: 8 pounds, 2 ounces in 10 minutes)

Or...

Is this America to the extreme? Oh yes. Only in this country could we suffer from record hunger and record obesity - at the same time! - and turn the ingestion of mass quantities of food into a spectator sport, complete with screaming crowds, news coverage, t-shirts, and video games.

Look, I don't think that just because someone has eaten more than I have, I am absolved from anything; I am not (so the scale tells me). However, I do sleep better knowing that while I might have overdone it during the holidays, it's not like I ate four 32-ounce bowls of mayonnaise in 8 minutes.

That is an actual record, too.