A Modest Proposal: Eat The Freshmen

We are now experiencing the special time of year in Iowa City when the freshman class has finally moved into their dorms and begun to acclimate to life as a university student. This class, which seems to get bigger every year, poses great challenges to the upperclassmen and regular civilians of Iowa City as they stumble around in their gold On Iowa! t-shirts, form long lines outside Summit, and amble around in confusion because they can’t find the rec.

What to do with all these poor, misguided youths? We at the Doily Allergen have decided to take a leaf from Jonathan Swift’s book: The only rational option is to eat the freshmen.

Of the nearly 6,500 incoming freshmen, we figure there are about 5,000 which are safe for human consumption. (The rest have severe nicotine poisoning. This is a very optimistic estimate, however—the real number probably lies somewhere in the 4,500s.) The average North American adult weighs 180 pounds, with around 153 pounds being usable (i.e. not bones). This quantity of meat can feed between 150 and 300 people, with the total number of meals in the freshman class equalling around 750,000-1,500,000.

That’s a lot of food! The edible freshmen could easily sustain the campus dining halls (or replace our beloved flex swipes) for a couple of months, not to mention the products that could be made with the non-edible parts of them. Use a couple of them in the cadaver labs. Run studies on the impacts of excessive vaping on the human lungs and nervous system. Give the bookbinding students their skin to fuel the campus wizards by creating magical tomes.

The possibilities are endless!

Best of all, this proposal will keep the streets cleaner and safer by minimizing the number of electric scooter-related fatalities and pedestrian traffic incidents. Eating the freshmen is a no-lose situation and ultimately a very sustainable solution!