I live, unfortunately, in San Francisco—a shining city perched atop a dogpile of foggy nudists, where a piece of toast costs $4 and people drink raw cacao juice for fun. As an antidote to West Coast foodie-ism, I’ve taken to watching YouTube videos of people shoving their faces full of high-calorie processed food.
My favorite of the genre is “The Nutella Challenge,” in which some nincompoop attempts to eat an entire 26.5-ounce (or 750-gram) jar of Nutella in under three minutes. Each jar has about 20 servings. Each serving contains 200 calories, 11 grams of sugar, and six grams of fat, meaning a whole jar contains about 4000 calories, 220 grams of sugar, and 120 grams of fat—nearly twice the recommended daily allowance for an active adult. All this has me wondering what these people would do given access to a pile of lard and a douching kit.
Firstly, I’d like to point out: it’s not a challenge if nobody challenges you. At least the ALS ice bucket challenge had a method to its madness. These people appear to be eating enormous jars of Nutella of their own free will, for no personal gain, and for no other reason than to see if they’ll survive. It’s that old American can-do attitude at work. “JUST GET IT IN MY BODY NOW,” they scream into the Internet void. “IT IS MY DESTINY.”
A couple of hours of bleary faces mindlessly gumming brown goo, and you’ll feel better about yourself and your prospects for employment, if not the human condition. Here’s my guide to the best and brownest Youtube has to offer.
First off, the gold standard. Shoenice is a man who calls himself “The Human Garbage Disposal.” He’s consumed raw eggs (complete with shells), crayons, a honey-and-toothpaste sandwich, and grass straight from the lawn. I like to watch this video and think about whether he has children, and, if so, what their names are.
Next up, the young contender Scottie B, proud owner of many fly hats and dog tags that look like prizes from a gumball machine. Scottie may be a rookie, but he has a lot of heart.
If you’re a very special kind of pervert, have I got the video for you. This guy consumes not only an entire jar of Nutella, but a jar of peanut butter and a jug of milk for good measure. Sure, the whole thing amounts to a metabolism humblebrag—look what I can digest with little to no effect on my bangin’ abs—but you’ve got to give him respect. Also, I’ve already reserved the domain livenudenutella.com, so I expect the cash to start rolling in any day now.
Brace yourselves, everybody, because this next one will haunt your dreams. In many ways, this video is the opposite of San Francisco. (Embedding has been disabled, but it’s well worth the click-through.) I’m not convinced Joey B is, in fact, fully human. It seems far more likely that he’s some breed of outer-space pig hybrid, or a John Waters character come to life. Most shocking is that he doesn’t just combust at the end of the video, Mr. Creosote-style.
This baby doesn’t get the challenge, like, at all. Dumb baby. You’re supposed to put it in your mouth, not bathe in it. Post-millennials ruin everything!
Apparently, this is a common mistake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vwer4GPCVw
A man of mystery enters the ring, masked like a luchador and ravenous for sweet sandwich spread. Why does he wear only red? What’s behind those dark glasses? How does he eat through that bandanna? These are question you will ask yourself. Shhh. Be content, dear reader, for some mysteries are not meant to be solved.
Oh, you thought this challenge was limited to humans? That’s speciesist. Ralph the squirrel can put it away with the best of them. Let’s just not think about what happened to him in the aftermath, or whether his little squirrelets were left orphaned and destitute by the dark power of liquified hazelnut.
Photo via Janine/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)