After three years of coming within seconds of victory, U2 Medicine student Mauricio Fino finally became McGill University’s Head of Lettuce.
On September 24, Fino ate a roughly 600-gram head of iceberg lettuce in 2 minutes and 45 seconds, winning McGill’s annual Lettuce Club competition after two previous losses and beating last year’s winning time of 3 minutes and 13 seconds.
“After three years of suffering, people doubting me, we’re finally here,” Fino declared after his victory. “May lettuce prosper for many years to come. Thank you, Monster Energy, for sponsoring this beautiful event.” He then started a massive chant for lettuce, and the crowd went wild.
“May lettuce prosper for many years to come.”
For Fino, the win came down to a simple strategy: dunking the lettuce in water to reduce the size of the leaves, making it easier to eat. Armed with a small container of water, he finished the last bite by dunking the remaining leaves and chugging them down.
“I couldn’t afford to practice beforehand and then lose, you know?” Fino said. “The heartbreak would have been too big.”
Held annually on McGill’s Lower Field, the Lettuce Club gives competitors 10 minutes to eat a head of iceberg lettuce weighing 600 grams at minimum. Each head of lettuce is weighed on scales brought by the Lettuce Club, with competitors trimming off any excess leaves beforehand; if their lettuce is underweight, they take extra leaves instead. The fastest finisher earns the title of Head of Lettuce, along with a lab coat decorated with leaves, and is tasked with the responsibility of organizing the following year’s competition.
Not everyone arrived with Fino’s three-year history. U3 Science student Zhuoxuan Du claimed he had been training for the competition since he was three years old by eating whole lettuce heads weekly. His predicted time? Two to two and a half minutes.
“I feel like everyone here is just competing for second place,” Du said. “I’m winning that jacket.”
“I feel like everyone here is just competing for second place.”
The competition even attracted exchange student Madison Hart from the University of Glasgow, who had heard about McGill’s lettuce-eating tradition before arriving in Montréal. While researching the university, she and her friends came across a claim that a competitor had once finished a head of lettuce in under two minutes.
“I was like, ‘No, I can’t do that,’” Hart said.
She and her classmates ended up holding their own lettuce-eating challenge at Glasgow with about 10 others to test this time. Although Hart decided not to participate in her own challenge in Scotland, she was convinced by her friends to compete at McGill with a resolve to finish within six minutes.
Outgoing Head of Lettuce, U4 Engineering student Cameron Rowat, described the moment as a poetic way to close his academic career. He wasn’t entirely sure who he would be without the title.
“To close off my academic career with such a big event is just very poetic,” Rowat said. “These are the last hours of me being the Head of Lettuce, and so frankly I don’t know who I’ll be when I take the jacket off. I think I might lose a part of myself.”
“These are the last hours of me being the Head of Lettuce, and so frankly I don’t know who I’ll be when I take the jacket off.”
Lettuce Club has held its competition annually since its inaugural meeting in 2021. Fino, now responsible for next year’s event, hopes to see the tradition grow.
“The main thing is a bigger turnout,” he said when speaking to The Bull & Bear. “We can always grow. I’d like to see 500 people next year.”
