There’s been a lot of interest in competitive eating recently: Magazine articles, MTV specials, documentaries. For the popular science program “Galileo”, we took a slighty different approach.

We follow Pat Bertoletti, the world’s second best eater, as he prepares for a waffle eating contest in Dallas. Pat is eager to break the world record (23 waffles in 10 minutes) and to beat his biggest rival on the tour, Joey Chestnut.

We tried to find out: How does he prepare to eat 23 waffles? What happens inside his body as he consumes vast amounts of food? How can he control his esophagus and swallow so much food in so little time?

Client: Pro7 /Galileo     Airdate: 11/13/07    TRT: 10:30 min
Producer: Johannes Wiebus
Camera: Peter Krajewski
Editor: Kathleen O'Heron