The hidden cost of healthy eating

Leif Mandible '09 knew it had gone too far.

The realization hit him with a pang as he stepped over pools of vomit flecked with tomato seeds, saw his unconscious friends sprawled on the floor with leaves of half-chewed romaine lettuce dangling from their slackened mouths, inhaled the overpowering odor of balsamic vinaigrette that hung rank in the air.

The campus salad-eating scene, of which he himself was a part, had gone from fun and daring to downright dangerous.

"I realized that they — we — were doing something we could very well regret in the near future," Mandible said, describing the epiphany that came to him at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night several weeks back. "I realized that all this binge salad-eating was too much, that we were actually putting ourselves at risk of physical harm."

Though it has been overshadowed by the recent national focus on excessive alcohol consumption on college campuses, binge salad-eating is a growing phenomenon at those same schools and represents a serious — and possibly even fatal — threat to students' health and academic performance, experts and observers say.

The practice, defined as consumption of over 100 ounces of salad within a time period equal to or less than one hour, appears rapidly to be gaining popularity on Princeton's campus. A recent survey of 80 selective colleges including the University, conducted by the nonprofit Foundation for a Cucumber-Free Future, found that 40 percent of students said they engage in binge salad-eating "frequently" or "relatively frequently," while 70 percent have become unconscious at least once due to excessive salad consumption.

Possible risks of binge salad-eating include choking, especially when the salad is made with difficult-to-chew greens such as arugula; digestive problems; dental woes due to overexercise of the molars; and unsightly gobs of spinach becoming stuck in one's teeth.

Ginevra Oleaginous GS '75, a sociologist at Penn who is currently writing about the binge salad-eating phenomenon and has done field research at Princeton, said students tend to engage in the risky practice for a variety of reasons. "Obviously, peer pressure is a major factor," she said. "But the students I interviewed also seemed to view salad as a social lubricant of sorts. It's a chemically demonstrable fact that your inhibitions are lowered after you gulp down your fifth bowl of iceberg lettuce, bell peppers and feta cheese."

University administrators said they are aware of the growing phenomenon, and are working on promoting alternatives for students and warning them of the possible dangers of excessive salad-munching. Beginning with the Class of 2012, incoming freshmen will be required to take the online course "Croutons.Edu," which alerts students to the dangers of binge salad-eating and lets them calculate, based on their gender and body weight, how many ounces of ranch-dressing-soaked romaine lettuce they could consume before passing out.

Colonial Club president Tom Ato '08 said Prospect Avenue is also aware of the dangers posed by binge salad-eating and is taking steps to ensure that no tragic accidents occur on club premises. "We're wrist-banding to make sure only students of legal lettuce-eating age are served salads," he said. "We make it clear to our employees that they shouldn't serve salads to students who look like they've already had too much."

Other club officials were less receptive toward Nassau Hall's overtures, however. "Salads are a fine old Princeton tradition, and this is just the latest in a series of efforts by President Tilghman, Dean [of the College Nancy] Malkiel and the rest of the sisterhood to mollycoddle us and pretend they know what's best," said one club president, stumbling around wildly and brandishing a forkful of spinach, walnuts and blue cheese slathered in raspberry vinaigrette. The president was granted anonymity after he expressed fears that "chocolate-eating thugs" would hunt him down for his views.

Additionally, some students expressed concerns that in the course of its newfound crackdown on binge salad-eating, the administration would attempt to put an end to "Newman's Own Day," a tradition in which, every April 24, some students attempt to consume 24 salads in 24 hours. The controversial annual event, which University administrators have publicly condemned in previous years, led actor Paul Newman — after whose line of salad dressings the event was named — to pen an open letter to the University asking that his name not be associated with the yearly festivities.