During college freshmen orientation, you might've signed up for the school newspaper or the improv club or the track team. But University of Maryland students have an option you probably didn't see at your school's activities fair: the Lettuce Club.
No, this isn't a creatively named group for vegetarians. It's literally a club for the sole purpose of eating lettuce. Its members bring their own lettuce heads, according to a post on its Facebook page, and time themselves eating them. The quickest eaters get the honor of The Head of Lettuce, the next meeting's planner. Except we're not sure what there is to plan. That agenda sounds pretty straightforward.
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Don't be fooled into thinking these events are tamer than, say, frat parties. The last meeting was "fucking wild," one member wrote on Reddit. "We had around 40 people eating and 40 people spectating. Jonas is the new official president/head of lettuce with an animal time of under 10 minutes."
This isn't the only club of its kind, Food Beast reports. The first lettuce-eating contest in recorded history took place last year at the the Maine School of Science and Mathematics. Their rules were harsh: People who took longer than half an hour to chomp down their veggies were prohibited from future meetings, Buzzfeed reports. After news of the group spread through Tumblr, dozens more popped up.
UMD's latest spectacle was caught on video. "It's really exciting," says one student in a documentary-style interview. "I feel like I'm so ready for it," another chimes in. "I'm just gonna dive right in, go straight to the bottom," one thinks through her strategy. Some douse their lettuce in dressing. Frantic competitors nearly choke on their food until one man is declared the winner, triumphantly washing his leafy greens down with water.
"Next year we're going bigger," the Reddit post promises. "I'm bringing 20 extra heads of lettuce."
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