- So, the other day I had a barbeque
and I ate a great big giant burger
and then a friend of mine looked at me and said--
- Oh, looks like somebody's got the meat sweats.
- and I started thinking to myself,
why do we call it that?
And more importantly,
are the meat sweats a real thing?
Later that night, I discovered
that there's a lot of debate on the internet
as to whether the meat sweats are just an urban legend
but even a legend starts somewhere.
I figured that if I found the beginning,
I could find the truth, so here's the definition
I found on a novelty hat.
The uncontrollable perspiration
caused by consuming mass quantities
of meat or meat by-products.
Seems reasonable, but who decided that?
I discovered that before the cats,
the mugs, the t-shirts, and the posters,
most people heard the term in that one episode of "Friends"
November 22, 2001, Monica makes a Thanksgiving turkey
that no one will eat, and then Joey eats the whole bird
and then right before the credits--
- "Here come the meat sweats."
- [Colin] That still had me wondering,
how did Joey hear about it?
That's when I found a book that led me to this guy.
- This is the famous David Kreizman.
Kreizman, did I say that right?
- Kreizman, yes.
I was the head writer on "Guiding Light"
and "As The World Turns" and "All My Children"
and also was the head writer at WWE for a little while too.
- Well, what I've read, you are the inventer
of the term "meat sweats".
Is this true?
- I don't know if I'm the inventor.
I'm one of the inventors, I would say.
- [Colin] David says he came up with the term at a Sizzler
in Virginia with college buddies in the mid '90s.
- From me, it got to the world of competitive eating
because a friend of mine, George Shea,
was in charge of the hot dog eating contest,
Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island
on the fourth of July. - Okay.
- And that was probably also around 1996.
I said about 10 hot dogs in, I could see
the competitors start to get the meat sweats.
- [Colin] And, as many of you know,
the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest spawned
what is now a multi-million dollar
competitive food eating industry.
All this history is fine and good,
but I decided it was time to call in an expert.
- Meat sweats isn't necessarily a scientific term.
- [Colin] In fact, the scientific term is thermogenesis.
- The body's trying to let you know
something's out of balance here.
Some people say that it has to do
with the sodium that's in the meat.
Some people say that it's the overabundance of protein,
of amino acids, and then the other theory is
just that it just kicks up that digestive fire
and makes it burn really strongly.
- [Colin] Do you think the meat sweats
are a real thing?
- I think they're real.
I'm going to say yes.
- [Colin] With this vote of confidence,
I decided to put the theory to the test.
- Press this down.
Oh, cool, it sort of like erupted through the bun
as I crushed it down.
- How am I supposed to eat this?
- I eat a lot of meat,
but I've never gotten the meat sweats.
- [Colin] Each of my test subjects
were given one pound of beef with all the fixin's.
I figured that would do the trick.
- He's pretty dry. - [Colin] Really?
- Yeah, do you feel sweaty? - I feel sweaty.
- I do not see any sweat.
No serious, visible signs of the meat sweats yet.
- [Colin] Results were inconclusive.
In fact, I was the only one who was certifiably sweaty.
It was time to find someone with a little more experience.
- I'm the L.A. Beast.
I am a professional competitive eater.
- [Colin] L.A. Beast eats anything and everything.
I especially recommend his hot dog swallowing video
if you never want to eat again.
- The most meat that I have ever consumed
in a single sitting was an 87 ounce steak meal.
Eating a giant piece of meat is like going to the gym.
It's a workout.
You're cutting for about 30 or 40 minutes straight.
You're throwing down meat down your esophagus.
You're, you know, hard of breathing
and that just induces sweat.
- So you would say that the meat sweats
are definitely a real thing?
- Without a doubt in my mind,
the meat sweats are 100 percent real.
- [Colin] And that's when I asked him to prove it.
- I'm here at Buzzfeed
and I'm about to eat 10 quarter pound patties
to show you that the meat sweats are indeed real.
- [Colin] It was pretty brutal watching this man
cram two and a half pounds of ground beef down his throat.
Every bite looked a little more painful than the last.
It only took him six minutes to finish off that beef and
in the end, there wasn't a single drop of sweat in sight.
Despite all the professionals insisting they're a real thing
it seemed impossible to induce the meat sweats.
The myth remains to be tested another day.
- Oh, gross. - Oh, I'm sorry.