If you’ve ever struggled to scarf down all 1,200 calories of a Chipotle burrito, you know finishing it is quite an accomplishment. Unless, that is, you are Brian “Eatin'” Keaton, who can down three.
In ten minutes.
As a member of the Association of Independent Competitive Eaters, Keaton, a junior food science major, has competed in Connecticut, New York and Virginia, eating anything from cheese steaks to Jamaican beef patties – though hot dogs are his specialty.
“I pretty much try to eat as much as I can without killing myself,” Keaton said.
Next month, Keaton is taking his gorging game to the next level when he competes in the North American Collegiate Eating Championship in San Diego. The televised event will feature eating gurus from colleges around the nation, with the winner taking home $1,000. The dish of choice is not yet determined, though Keaton expects typical college fare, like plates of burgers, fries, chicken fingers or even Ramen noodles.
“I think being in college is the best time to do this stuff,” Keaton said. “There is lots of free time, cheap food, you’re super active, and a lot of my friends like watching me do it.”
But greasy college food doesn’t cut it on Keaton’s training menu. Instead he opts for large amounts of vegetables, saying low-calorie foods are the key to staying healthy in his kind of sport.
Now that the national competition is coming up, Keaton will train three to four times a week by eating four pounds of green beans, a large dinner – usually consisting of a large bowl of pasta or casserole – and a gallon of water a day.
At the university, Keaton competes in an annual South Street Steaks contest, last year coming in third by eating 5 1/4 cheesesteaks. He also likes to compete casually with his friends.
Those friends, however, have long given up trying to best the chow champion.
“I’ve tried to challenge him before,” said Jason Kraus, a sophomore criminology and criminal justice major. “I had to stop halfway through what we were eating and say, ‘I’m not doing it.’ Anyone can eat 14 hot dogs over the course of a day, but when he does it under 10 minutes, that’s ridiculous.”
Kraus recalled losing track of Keaton late one weekend night, only to find him eating a whole pizza by himself in Ratsies.
Friends with Keaton since freshman year, junior animal sciences major Pranav Chawla ordered a 5-5-5 Dominoes deal the first week of school with Keaton, who finished his entire pizza before Chawla completed his second slice.
“I’m a small kid,” Chawla said. “I don’t eat that much. I kind of eat like a bird, so every time I eat, he always finishes my scraps.”
Keaton has even looked outside his species for opponents. At a party, he raced his friend’s pit bull to eat a 12-pack of cold hot dogs. Each downed the meat in under three minutes, but the dog emerged victorious, beating Keaton by only a hot dog and a half.
Keaton’s talent is not without its perks. For one thing, he said, the ladies love it.
“[Girls] actually think it’s pretty cool,” Keaton said. “They come up and talk to me even with s— all over my face and looking really gross. They are not disgusted by it at all.”
Keaton’s parents support his extreme eating.
“I think it’s pretty neat, actually,” Brian’s father Kevin Keaton said. “There are not too many people who can say they are the proud parent of a competitive eater.”
Growing up, Keaton had always been an average eater, his mother said.
“Honestly, for myself, it’s pretty nauseating when you see someone chow down like that on nine foot-long hot dogs,” said Sharon Keaton, Brian’s mother.
But Keaton said he was always fascinated by the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest and the famous Japanese gorger Takeru Kobayashi. Inspired by an eating contest on TV, Keaton decided to enter a New Jersey pizza-eating championship during his senior year of high school. He came in fourth place, beating out some professional eaters.
Since then he has competed in about 10 contests ranging from Sausage Fest on the campus to radio-station competitions. Keaton’s big break was taking first in the amateur league of the Windmill National Hot Dog Eating Championship, in which he received a giant trophy with a hot dog figure on top.
Now that the collegiate championship is a little under a month away, Keaton is starting to stretch his stomach in preparation.
Chawla is even helping him develop an eating regime, supplementing his usual training with timed trials in which he consumes dry roughage like cabbage and lettuce.
Even with all the training, Keaton said he sometimes feels intimidated when he begins to compete.
“I get butterflies in my stomach, and when that happens, eating is the last thing you want to do,” he said. “When a whole bar of drunk people are screaming at you, it’s really nerve-wracking.”
Keaton plans to keep competing after college but does not plan to make a career of it.
“I’m going to try to stick with it, but I’m not going to travel to the Midwest or other side of the country to eat chili or something stupid,” Keaton said. “It’s definitely not a priority. Once it starts making me unhealthy, I’m not going to do it anymore.”
Though the Collegiate Eating Championship is next month, the competition will air the last week of May.
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