Imagine this, but with Mom's chili | Jon Gitchoff

Just so we're clear, the Midwest Puppy Contest has nothing to do with dogs. And Mr. Midwest Leather is not a crafter of leather goods.

Gut Check feels rather naïve for thinking otherwise.

A human puppy is...um...a human pet who behaves like a dog but looks like a man wearing a leather jockstrap and collar and sitting on all fours. And Mr. Midwest Leather is a fella who looks good in all manner of leather attire and is a fine representative of the leather-wearing community.

OK, wait, we swear this had something to do with food...

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Yes, that headline is accurate: Amtrak has lost $834 million on food service over the past ten years, an audit by the Government Accountability Office has revealed. Seems like the national rail line's food-service workers get a little peckish and a little sloppy on those long hauls across the country -- at least, that's what a New York Times report suggests:

Amtrak lost more than $800 million on its food and beverage services over the last 10 years, largely because of waste, employee theft and lack of proper oversight, government auditors have found.

How can Amtrak cut down on food-related losses? Gut Check leaves that to the policy experts. We turn our attention back to that staggering number: $834,000,000. What could you buy for that much dough?

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What's really scary is that this woman is 6 feet tall.

Shocking news from the fountain-soda beat: 7-Eleven has reduced the capacity of its Double Gulp from 64 ounces to a mere 50. Is 7-Eleven taking a stand in the contentious debate about obesity in America?

Nope. Seems the 64-ounce Double Gulp was just too damn big for the average vehicle's cup-holder.

Lest you still think 7-Eleven is doing your health any favors by shrinking its Double Gulp, consider: If you fill your Double Gulp with a regular soda -- Coca-Cola, say -- you're still pouring nearly 600 calories.

(By Coca-Cola's own nutritional information, the calories per ounce of Coke range from 11.667 to 12 -- so there are somewhere from 580 and 600 calories in 50 ounces. Of course, that doesn't take into account that most fountain-soda drinkers wil have ice cubes in the cup, too. WHATEVER.)

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As far back as Gut Check can remember [insert your own Proustian madeleine reverie here], we've been smitten with the Chinese chow-down concept of dim sum. Sitting around a table with eight or ten people, pointing at exotic-looking items on the carts that the servers push around, asking, "What's that?" not understanding the answer and then eating it anyway -- yep, that's our idea of a perfect Sunday afternoon.

So we were a little on edge when our e-mailbox clanged with the arrival of a dispatch from FoodSafety.gov, announcing a massive-sounding recall of pork dumpings.

How massive-sounding?

Is 55,757 pounds of pork dumplings massive-sounding enough for you?

In a press release issued earlier today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) writes that the dumplings were recalled by CB Foods, Inc., in El Monte, California, because they contain monosodium glutamate (MSG), which is not declared on the label.

More on that in a minute. First things first: 55,757 pounds -- that's a lot of dumplings.

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Tomorrow, April 26, participating St. Louis restaurants will donate a portion of their daily earnings to Dining Out For Life, a national event that benefits and raises awareness for AIDS service organizations. With a heart full of compassion and tactlessness, Gut Check wondered which restaurants were most philanthropic, and therefore most deserving of our dollar bills for this really good cause. If you will: On a scale ranging from phoning it in a la the Gap's Project Red to UNICEF volunteers nurturing sick children abroad, how dedicated were local restaurants to supporting the charity? Yeah, yeah, we know, they're all heroes just for agreeing to participate. Everyone is a winner. But who is the real winner?

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Coke. Lots and lots of Coke.

Back when Gut Check had the metabolism of a teenage boy (because, at the time, we were in fact a teenage boy), we'd think nothing of slamming back a six-pack of ice-cold Coca-Cola over the course of a lazy afternoon. Of course, we'd also think nothing about slamming back a bacon double cheeseburger with large fries and a large Coke for lunch and then having a "snack" of an entire bag of pizza-flavored Combos only two and a half hours later. We thought nothing most of the time back then.

So we felt the slightest twinge of sympathy when we read the sad story this morning of a New Zealand woman who passed away from a heart attack at the age of 30. She died two years ago, actually, but a pathologist has now released a report linking her death in part to her own Coca-Cola habit.

How much of a habit?

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Rease Kirchner

In addition to breaking a world record, Webster University's ice cream sundae was shaped like a Slip 'n Slide. Oh, trust us, we were tempted to "dive right in."

On Wednesday, April 11, Webster University (470 East Lockwood Avenue, Webster Groves; 314-968-7128) broke the Guinness World Record for the "Longest Ice Cream Dessert." You might not have known there was a record to break, but up until Wednesday, the record was 152.2 feet. Webster blew that sad little junior sundae out of the water with its 200.3 foot ice cream sundae, which was built on the university's quad.

This epic and delicious event was the kick-off to Webster's annual Spring Fest. Gut Check spoke with campus activities program manager, Lauren Douglass, to get the full scoop on how this record-breaking event came to be.

Douglass explained that Webster's campus activities group booked the band Reel Big Fish for its annual spring concert, so the theme for the week became: "It's big. Reel Big." When brainstorming ideas for ways to jump start Spring Fest, they figured -- what's bigger than breaking a world record?

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Courtesy of Matthew Willer

Bacon Awareness

A bacon explosion is not a pack of bacon hooked up to M-80s, although eating one might make you feel a bit, er, eruptive. A traditional bacon explosion is two pounds of bacon weaved around two pounds of Italian sausage, covered in barbecue sauce and seasoning. This mass of meat is then smoked or baked before being sliced and eaten.

Local bacon enthusiast Matthew Willer's first successful bacon-explosion experiment (eight pounds, doubled from the original) left him yearning for more. A little research proved the unofficial world record for a bacon explosion was 60 pounds, so Willer immediately set his sights on a 120-pound bacon explosion.

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A scene from a wing-eating contest at last year's Midwest Wingfest.

This holiday weekend, the second annual Midwest Wingfest takes place in Fairview Heights, Illinois, on Saturday, September 3, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m, providing a way to honor U.S. veterans while dining supreme. The event features up to 25 vendors competing for top honors in both hot-wing and gourmet categories.

Co-chairpersons Doug Shoemaker and Jere Wilmering, along with a committee of around ten people, volunteer their efforts year-round for the one-day culmination of family fun. Midwest Wingfest earned nonprofit status this year with the intention to donate proceeds to the Fairview Heights Chamber of Commerce and the USO.

"Everybody has just an absolute ton of fun while helping to raise money for an awesome cause," says Shoemaker, a former military member with a huge place in his heart for the men and women who have served the country.

Last year's event had approximately 17,000 attendees who consumed a total of about 96,000 wings. A central cook station equipped with a 48-foot refrigerated truck will hold 12,000 to 13,000 pounds of chicken wings for this year's event.

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bodybuildingpro.com

385 pounds of meat.

This is why we need the border patrol. Not only do illegal immigrants get in, but so does contraband bologna!

On Friday customs agents in St. Teresa, New Mexico, busted a truck smuggling 385 pounds of Mexican bologna stashed behind the driver's seat.

The meat was seized because it hadn't gone through the proper inspection channels.

Just how much contraband Mexican bologna is that?

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