Professor badmouths hot dogs

The San Jose Mercury News reports:

[Joey] Chestnut, who clocked in at 210 pounds before the contest, downplayed his win, which carries a $10,000 prize.

"I'm just a normal guy eating hot dogs on the Fourth," he said. "You can't overcomplicate it."

Then he burped. He was clearly tired. The hot dogs had staggered him. No doubt he'll need recovery time, said Dr. Marc Siegel, a professor at the New York University School of Medicine.

"Hot dogs are extremely unhealthy, especially when eaten at high volume. They're really processed. They have high cholesterol and too much salt," he said.

And thanks to the quantities the competitors ate, they'll likely suffer nausea, bloat, headache and possibly high blood pressure for several days as the body slowly digests the food.

"One is bad for you, five's worse and 50 is terrible," he said.

You would think that the newspaper could find a medical professor who knows more about food than the clerk in a natural food store. Food does not become unhealthy just because it is processed, or contains cholesterol and salt.