Meeting Takeru Kobayashi is like coming face-to-face with someone who has slept with Julia Roberts or had a near-death experience: You long to ask what it felt like. How does it feel to cram 4 kg of food into your stomach in less time than it takes most people to walk to the pub?

Kobayashi's talent is being able to eat more, faster, than anyone on the planet. In summer 2004, he scoffed a gut-stretching 53 1/2 frankfurters in the stipulated 12 minutes, setting a new world record at Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island. By the time the final buzzer sounded, Kobayashi was some 3 1/2 kg heavier and looked, with his waxy pallor and rasping breath, like he'd swallowed a toilet plunger.

This year, he thinks he can eat even more when he defends his title for the fourth time on July 4. "I have no intention of losing," he says. "I take this business very seriously."