I'm memory of

I just got into this on Netflix, and just a few episodes in and I realized I had seen 3 in memory of ... When talking about the chef Flay threw down with.
Wtf?
How did they manage to throw down with all these people before they died? Is there some sort of curse this show has? Or was it because these people had really unhealthy diets?
You never watch Chopped or something then find out one of the chefs died a little bit later, it's kind of depressing, but now I'm watching the show just to see if I can guess if the person was still living by the time they aired the episode.