Glutton for "bun"ishment?

You know I'm a big fan of healthy red meat, but even I wouldn't recommend eating a six-pound hamburger in one sitting!

Yet according to a recent AP story, that's exactly what one New Jersey 19-year-old recently did at a Clearfield, Pennsylvania restaurant that boasts what must surely be the world's largest burger: A 96-ounce monster with 5 pounds of fixins - including 1 whole onion, 2 whole tomatoes, 1 whole head of lettuce, 1.25 pounds of cheese, 1 cup each of mayo, mustard, ketchup, and relish, plus two enormous bun-halves.

The restaurant, Denny's Beer Barrel Pub, issues a standing challenge to all comers: Eat the burger and all its trimmings in less than 3 hours and it's free. Since the meal's introduction on Super Bowl Sunday in 1998, no one has done it successfully. Not that many haven't tried - one 420-pound world-renowned competitive eater's best time downing the behemoth burger (it took him 3 tries just to finish it) was 7.5 hours!

What makes this story of gluttony even more incredible is this: The kid who polished the "96er" off in a tidy 2 hours, 54 minutes (on the first attempt, too) isn't some hulking college-football linebacker, Sumo wrestler, or Olympic weightlifter-in-training...

But a 100-pound girl! Yep, that's right. The petite College of New Jersey sophomore ate 11 pounds worth of food, more than a tenth of her body weight, in one 3-hour sitting. And apparently, with no lasting ill effects.

As incredible as this is, I'd never let anyone I care about do it. Meat's good for you, but a ruptured stomach isn't.

But hey, at least it wasn't 6 pounds worth of Girl Scout Cookies. Anyone who did that might REALLY be in trouble...

Always scouting out the truth,

William Campbell Douglass II, MD