Fun Fact Wednesday

Reading Irena Chalmers' book, Food Jobs, I came across this statistic: "Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza each day, or about 350 slices per second." For you city folk, just one acre is nearly as big as an American football field.

So what's your share? On a per person basis it is more meaningful to measure based on weight, rather than acres or even square feet. Starting with Chalmers follow-on claim that the average American eats 46 slices of pizza per year (which does roughly tie to the above stats), and with the average pie tipping the scales at three pounds for eight slices, that means on average Americans eat over 17 pounds of pizza annually. With the average American adult weighing around 177 pounds, this does not mean we are all made up of approximately 10% pizza, but sometimes I wonder.

OK HP12C, you can go back in the drawer now.

Greatest Athlete of Our Time

LeBron James? Tiger Woods? Lance Armstong? Michael Phelps? All respectable nominations, but the greatest athlete of our time hails from the world of professional eating. Earning his third victory in a row in the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest, Joey Chestnut set a new world record by eating 68 hotdogs in 10 minutes and didn't need an overtime to handily defeat rival Takeru Kobayashi this year. Chestnut adds this world record to eighteen other such achievements in catorgories as varied as gyoza, matzoh balls, and Pizza Hut P'Zones. Take that Usain Bolt. Sure, you can run the 100m in 9.69 seconds but how many hot dogs can you eat while you're doing it? Hats off to Joey Chestnut, greatest athlete of our time.