This Competitive Eater Just Beat 2 Rabbits In A Salad-Eating Contest

When we think of hungry rabbits, the first thing that probably comes to mind is Trix the rabbit, who desperately wanted a bowl of cereal only to be told constantly, "Silly rabbit! Trix are for kids!" Well, the furry little animals recently had the chance to change the phrase to, "Silly human! Salad is for rabbits!" in a competitive eating showdown, but they totally fumbled the opportunity (via Food & Wine). A Flemish giant rabbit was put up against competitive eater Raina Huang in a salad-eating contest, but they lost by a mile. In fact, a second rabbit had to be called in after the first was stalling, and even two rabbits still couldn't take down Huang. Maybe we've got it all wrong — maybe salad is for humans and someone should just give that Trix rabbit that bowl of cereal he so craves. 

The challenge, which took place this week at a restaurant called Chop Stop in Glendale, California, was to eat as much salad as possible in 10 minutes. The Flemish giant rabbit that Huang competed against weighed 20 pounds, so it seemed like a great contender, considering too that salad isn't usually the food of choice for these types of competitions. (Take famous competitive eater Kobayashi – he's most famous for eating vast quantities of foods like hot dogs, hamburgers, meatballs, and Twinkies.) However, even when facing a competitor whose diet is composed mainly of salad and greens, Huang still won. In fact, she set a world record for the most salad eaten in 10 minutes — a whole 3.5 pounds of it (via Instagram).

The premise of the entire competition hung on the idea that the giant rabbits would be eager to chow down on as much salad as possible. Yet, it turns out that they didn't actually have much interest in eating at all. The first rabbit, Honey "Mega" Bunny, didn't eat anything, so halfway through the competition, she was swapped out for a different giant bunny named Precious, who also didn't touch the food in front of her. This cleared the way for Huang to claim an easy victory. However, like a true competitor, she didn't let her rivals' behavior influence her own performance, and she managed to eat 3.5 pounds of salad by the end of the competition, breaking a world record.

So, why didn't the rabbits eat? It turns out that bingeing just isn't how they consume food. "Rabbits are not scarfers," Louis Moses, the animal handler, said in an interview (via Reuters). "They're not like dogs, [who] just scarf it down quickly. They're nibblers. They nibble all day, all night." Another reason why the Flemish giant bunnies weren't a match for competitive eater Huang? Even over a day of munching and crunching, they just don't eat vast quantities of food. On average, Flemish giant rabbits should eat three to five handfuls of greens over the course of a day (via Hutch and Cage), and up to a quarter-cup of Timothy hay pellets (via Cottontail Club). So Huang's 3.5 pounds of salad would take rabbits days to eat. Lesson learned. Maybe the next time we're talking about a salad and call it "rabbit food," we should think about calling it Raina Huang food instead.