--- title: College Students Use Tinder To Get Free Food description: Exchange swipes for meal vouchers canonical: https://time.com/77531/tinder-college-free-food/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-25T17:20:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:09:08.662Z og:title: College Students Found a New, Better Way To Use Tinder og:description: FREE FOOD og:url: https://time.com/77531/tinder-college-free-food/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltea3157e0b58d5e69/69868c8ce53abad5d64d2473/111659979.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: food og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: College Students Found a New, Better Way To Use Tinder twitter:description: FREE FOOD twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltea3157e0b58d5e69/69868c8ce53abad5d64d2473/111659979.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # College Students Found a New, Better Way To Use Tinder by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Apr 25, 2014 5:20 PM UTC  Hungry Man Eating Fruit Pastilles Hungry Man Eating Fruit PastillesGetty Images by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Apr 25, 2014 5:20 PM UTC College students have begun using Tinder to pursue the greatest thing in the world. No, not love. Free food. [American University junior Julia Reinstein realized](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/04/24/how-one-colleges-students-are-hacking-tinder-to-get-free-food/) that the dating/hookup app could be used for more practical means than finding makeout partners. People could identify if they had or were in need of a spare meal swipe at the school’s cafeteria. By limiting your search distance to a mile, meal matches would proliferate. Think of all the food babies yet to be born. “That’s symbiosis, folks,” Reinstein wrote on [Swipe for Swipes’ Tumblr.](http://swipeforswipes.tumblr.com) I had friends who, while in grad school, used to joke about using OKCupid as their meal plan, but this endeavor is much more direct. As long as the salad bar doesn’t come with a side of expectations, everybody wins. \[[_Washington Post_](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/04/24/how-one-colleges-students-are-hacking-tinder-to-get-free-food/)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/77531/tinder-college-free-food/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/77531/tinder-college-free-food/"},"headline":"College Students Found a New, Better Way To Use Tinder","datePublished":"2014-04-25T17:20:45.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:09:08.662Z","description":"FREE FOOD","url":"https://time.com/77531/tinder-college-free-food/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Living","society","Food","Dating","viral","Tinder"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltea3157e0b58d5e69/69868c8ce53abad5d64d2473/111659979.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltea3157e0b58d5e69/69868c8ce53abad5d64d2473/111659979.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"food","caption":"111659979","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/77531/tinder-college-free-food/","name":"College Students Found a New, Better Way To Use Tinder"}}]}] ```