Daily BrewMcGill University team creates world’s largest fruit salad to capture new record
People have done some pretty random things to get into the record books.
Some have spent hours and hours of their life constructing a 2,084 kg rubber-band ball (yes, that's a ball made up of rubber bands) just so they could beat the existing rubber-band ball record of 1,415 kg.
A German man has driven a steel barbell through his flesh 453 times to earn the dubious distinction of world's "Most Pierced Man" (warning: link Not Safe For Lunch.)
And lest we be left in the dust, a dedicated team has catapulted Montreal's McGill University toward a new global best.
The achievement? World's biggest fruit salad.
As the Canadian Press reports, McGill bested closest rival Fresno State University to concoct a 5,038 kg mix of nature's best.
Fresno State held the previous record at 4,698 kg.
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That roughly adds up to 2,250 kilograms of watermelon, 1,012 kilograms of pineapple and 162 kilograms of strawberries cut up by 300 knife-wielding volunteers. (They always fill fruit salads with so much melon.)
While the stunt could certainly be construed as wasteful, McGill's executive chef Oliver de Volpi told the CP that the fruit was homegrown and the event was designed to promote healthy eating during the school's Orientation Week.
"We used mostly our own fruit from our own farm so there's something to be proud about for local ingredients," he added.
Like a number of Canadian universities, McGill has been engaged in creating sustainability initiatives on campus for the past decade.
To add to the environmental consciousness angle, peels and stems were tossed into the world's largest compost heap right on campus.
But don't expect to see much of the actual salad in the pile.
McGill's Food and Dining Services director told the news agency that 3,000 hungry fresh fruit lovers would chow down on the record-winning goods, while leftovers would be shipped to a host of Montreal homeless shelters.
The school's achievement has already been noted in the Guinness Book database, and will be considered for inclusion in the 2014 print edition.
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Meanwhile, the fruit salad joins a long list of homegrown achievements, like the world's largest tin solider in New Westminster, B.C. and the world's most crowded dodgeball game at the University of Alberta.
