Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest: Eric 'Badlands' Booker of Selden will be drinking lots of lemonade

Eric “Badlands” Booker of Selden has gone on hiatus from stuffing his face with as many hot dogs as he can swallow in 10 minutes.

He’ll now be chugging down lemonade for sport. A gallon of lemonade. All at once.

“The body is an amazing thing. You can do amazing things with it,” Booker said with five days to go before he’ll partake in a relatively new competition at the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.

He’s won the past two years — 38 seconds the first year to swallow a gallon; 24 seconds last year.

“You’re chugging it and chugging it, drinking it nonstop,” he said.

Nathan's hot dog competitors gather once more

On Tuesday morning in Coney Island, Brooklyn, at the Nathan’s flagship restaurant on the corner of Stillwell and Surf avenues, men and women eaters from nations such as England, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Australia, South Korea, and of course, the United States, will gather to eat and drink and gorge.

Last year’s champion was Joey Chestnut, claiming his 15th victory, by eating 63 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. That’s over 10,000 calories and almost 14 pounds. (Chestnut holds a world record: 76.)

There are 31 competitors. The contests offer $20,000 each for the men and women champions.

There are about 100 organized competitive eaters in the U.S., and perhaps 300 worldwide — which is a conservative estimate, said George Shea, the longtime master of ceremonies of the Nathan's contest and co-founder of competitive eating's Major League Eating (formerly known as the International Federation of Competitive Eating).

Why do people watch? 

"I think there's a little bit of, 'if mom doesn't like it, then it's gotta be good.' You know what I mean? So I think there's a little — it's not taboo, that's not the right word. People like the fact that some people don't like it," Shea said.

The Nathan's contest is far from the only eating competition. 

Last month, at the Mattituck strawberry shortcake eating contest, Geoff Esper, the number-two ranked eater in the world, gobbled down 21 pounds of the dessert in eight minutes.

Legend has it that the Nathan's contest roots date to July 4, 1916 — the same year the eponymous Nathan Handwerker opened his restaurant. Four immigrants are said to have gathered at Nathan’s to prove their relative patriotism.

“As the story goes, they were competing to see who was the most patriotic. How did they determine the winner? With a hot dog-eating contest, of course!” says the Nathan’s history of the event. (A native of Ireland won, by eating 13 hot dogs and buns.)

The event in its current form dates to 1972 and is now sanctioned by Major League Eating and watched in person by thousands, Nathan’s says. It’s also telecast on ESPN.

An official sponsor is Pepcid, the over-the-counter heartburn reliever that works by reducing the amount of acid in the stomach.

A 2013 article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal said that competitive eaters’ stomachs develop “unique properties, including the ability to expand by an incredible amount.”

(For the record, Booker, 54, says his stomach is fine after a contest or a chug.)

A professor of medicine who’s studied competitive eating is quoted in the article as saying there is minimal data on whether participating in speed-eating contests puts contestants’ health at risk. But the article says doctors guess it could cause a range of scary-sounding gastrointestinal trouble.

Some contestants jump and wiggle their bodies while scarfing down the hot dogs — to ease the food down the esophagus and settle more compactly in their stomachs, according to Nathan's.

Oceanside Nathan's visit started Booker on his path

Booker, a New York City subway conductor on the No. 7 line, got his start in competitive eating back in 1997 during a visit to a Nathan’s in Oceanside with kids. (He was living in nearby Long Beach.)

He saw a poster featuring Uncle Sam beckoning prospective contestants. Booker then signed up for a qualifying screener — and actually won, consuming 17 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes. He got a spot in the official contest in Coney Island, a trophy and a year’s supply of hot dogs (480 links, all at once; he stored them in an ice box in his Long Beach home and donated the rest).

From 1997 on, he partook. He’s never won the Nathan's hot dog contest, but has placed second. His personal best: 40.

“You train for it. You gotta have stomach capacity. You gotta have stamina. You gotta have focus. And a little bit of endurance, and a good strategy,” Booker said last week, the day he posted a video of him chugging a gallon-size wine glass holding the contents of 10 cans of Warheads Sour Soda.

He trains his stomach capacity by eating lots of vegetables and drinking lots of water throughout the year.

His strategy for the hot dogs: Eat two hot dogs at a time and dunk two buns — “actually use the buns as my water, as my beverage, use the wet bun to wash the hot dogs down.”

“Just repeat. Find a rhythm. Just do that for the next 10 minutes,” he said.

It’s a similar mindset in chugging, where there's a championship belt for the winner, but no cash prize.

“We chug a gallon of Nathan’s sugar-free lemonade, and it’s first to finish wins,” said Booker, who has a YouTube channel called “BadlandsChugs” with 754 videos and 3.45 million subscribers.

His channel’s slogan: “I’m on a mission to chug the world one bottle at a time!”

It took about 45 seconds to down the gallon of soda in the latest video.

The song “Altitude Compensation” by Aly & Fila played as an on-screen stopwatch counts up. Upon completion, Booker stuck his tongue out, squinted, exhaled, laughed and groaned.

“Wow,” he said before letting out a big belch.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.