I don’t understand competitive eating. Seems like a good way to suffer immediate “death by food” — as opposed to death by food over a span of decades, which probably will kill most of us in the First World.

And, eating something nasty, such as hotdogs (and hotdogs are certainly nasty after two) … seems like a form of punishment. Torture.

Joey Chestnut ate a record 72 hotdogs — and buns — at the Nathan’s Famous competition on the Fourth of July this year, and it is hard to imagine what the body does with those.

What strikes me as more perverse?

Eating a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of honey in three minutes, as someone apparently did in a contest in Turkey.

Honey is one of nature’s great gifts. I am a big fan of it, as I noted a couple of years ago with the following aside:

I believe honey is massively underrated. Who eats honey anymore? No one. Why? Because it’s messy? Honey was the sugar of the Western World, until sugar cane came along. Honey is wonderful! Why do we eat so little of it, in the 21st century? Too sticky? It has to be better for a human body than processed sugar. Think of all the references to honey. “The land of milk and honey” … “honey bunch” … “sweet as honey”. Anyway, I may present myself to the International Honey Council (I just made up that industry group) and suggest they need a new marketing campaign. We will call it: “I love you, honey!” And will show people in ecstasy while eating honey, and demonstrate the many ways in which it could be used.

A couple of spoonfuls of it is plenty for one day.

After that, it gets weird. And probably dangerous.

Honey is a liquid, but only sorta. Glugging a kilo of it, as this silly man does on this video, seems like an invitation to choking. And perhaps to sugar shock.

In the linked story above, from the Turkish town of Antalya, the attached photo does not suggest if the winner is pictured, but if he is … it’s got to be the guy in the middle. Though he is not using a container big enough to hold more than a few ounces of the golden treat.

The video guy appears to be eating a lot of honey. Maybe it really is a kilo, but by my observation he is done with it 93 seconds. Indicating he is about twice as fast as the guy in Turkey.

The Turkey figures seem to be off. The headline suggests the competitors ate 2.2 kilos, but we pretty much have to assume they meant pounds. One kilo converts to 2.2 pounds, the amount the Yank said he drank/ate.

At the end of the video, the guy says: “It’s so thick and sticky! Three thousand calories. Like, a lot of sugar. A lot. I think I met my quota of honey for the next 10 years.”

No doubt. But he could have approached it a bit more gradually.