Senior to complete 14,000-calorie ice cream challenge

Drew Meyer loves ice cream.

But Meyer plans to take his love for the frozen treat to a whole new level.

Tomorrow in Ben & Jerry’s on West Franklin Street, the UNC senior will attempt to eat an entire Vermonster.

As of press time, Meyer had raised $55 through GoFundMe to finance this challenge. The Vermonster is $42.50 and has 14,000 calories — enough energy to sustain one person for seven days.

It includes 20 scoops of ice cream, four bananas, four servings of hot fudge or hot caramel, three chocolate chip cookies, one chocolate fudge brownie, 10 scoops of walnuts, two scoops each of four toppings of the customer’s choice and whipped cream.

Ordinarily, four or more people are needed to finish the massive snack.

Senior Patrick Griffin, a friend of Meyer, said Meyer is doing it for a good cause.

“I don’t know how he didn’t know about the Vermonster challenge until like last week or something, but he said he was going to do it and try to raise money for the summer missions,” he said.

The summer missions are run through Cru, a Christian organization at UNC Meyer belongs to. He has gone on Cru summer missions for the past two years.

To gain the inside track on the challenge, Meyer did his homework.

“I’ll grab some coffee that day and bring it with me so that I can take a bite and drink a sip of coffee,” he said. “I saw a guy on YouTube eat the whole thing in seven or eight minutes. It was nuts.”

The fastest solo Vermonster completion belongs to Matt Stonie, who posted a YouTube video of himself finishing the feat in a nauseating seven minutes flat.

Griffin said his friend has what it takes to finish.

“If he does not do it in under nine minutes, I’m going to be pretty disappointed,” he said. “We can still be friends though.”

These high expectations come from Meyer’s reputation for above average ice cream consumption.

Meyer’s roommate, Will Inabnit, said he has witnessed Meyer’s ice cream habit.

“Most people say an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” Inabnit said. “I was like, ‘Drew, for you, a pint a day keeps the doctor away.’”

Meyer thinks he’s prepared.

“For breakfast one day, I ate an entire quart and a half,” Meyer said. “That’s your typical tub that you get at the grocery store. I didn’t feel all that bad after that.”

The human body is not meant to consume so much dessert in one sitting. But Meyer has a strategy to get around this.

“You eat it as quickly as you can because the longer you take, the more time your body has to react to how much food you are actually eating,” he said.

Meyer has strong allies against the Vermonster.

“You got this, man,” Inabnit said encouragingly to his friend. “I wish you the best. If you let me have a bite, that would be nice.”

arts@dailytarheel.com