Burton Hall put on a food-eating contest last weekend with four events: Wasabi, Save the Gummi Worm, Cracker Eating, and the Gallon Challenge.
They held the Food Olympics out on the lawn on a pair of picnic tables piled with milk, cans of whipped cream, and boxes of crackers. First, students tried to eat six saltine crackers in under a minute without water in the Cracker Eating. Nobody actually succeeded, but Jim Avery won by getting the closest at five crackers. In Save the Gummi Worm, contestants raced to be first to find the gummi worm in a bowl of whipped cream without using their hands. Again, Jim Avery was victorious.
The wasabi contest failed to happen because nobody could decide what to actually do with the wasabi. Should they see who could hold it in their mouth the longest? Who could down the most? It ended in stalemate.
The centerpiece of the Olympics, though, was the Gallon Challenge. The objective was to drink an entire gallon of milk in an hour and keep it down. Three guys entered the challenge at first: Davey Bendiksen, Tommy Garcia, and Joe Sjoberg. Davey pulled out around the half-hour mark because he had forgotten about the contest and eaten a big lunch not long before. He was replaced by Ryan, a high school senior visiting Carleton as a prospective student. Although he entered the contest late, he quickly started gaining on Joe and Tommy.
With fifteen minutes left, Tommy also folded. Joe was determined to finish his gallon but soon regretted it. With three minutes to go, the milk he'd downed made a surprise encore appearance.
Prospective student Ryan finished the jug with three minutes to spare, and finished his hour without even looking sick. His prize? A carton of yogurt.
