Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun . . .
now say that 24,999 more times.

Today a man from Wisconsin ate his 25,000th Big Mac.*

Yes, you heard me right.

A man ate his 25,000th Big Mac.

And that man is still alive.

And healthy.

If you've never seen the movie Super Size Me, you should.
The film follows documentarian Morgan Spurlock as he attempts to find out exactly how bad fast food really is for Americans. In order to do this, Spurlock agrees to eat nothing but food from McDonald's for one entire month. At the beginning of the month, Spurlock is in perfect condition, but after it's all over he's a physcial wreck—he's gained a ton of weight, has heart and blood problems, and is on the verge of liver failure, proving his theory that fast food is killing us.

But there is one person in Spurlock's film who remains a mystery, and his name is Don Gorske.

While Spurlock is traveling the country eating supesized meals, he meets Gorske at his hometown McDonald's in Fon Du Lac, Wisconsin. Everyone there knows Gorske because he goes there every single day. Not only does he go to this McDonald's every day, he also eats a Big Mac and a Coke every day as well. Sometimes Gorske even dines at his favorite restaurant twice in one day.

Gorske ate his first Big Mac thirty-nine years ago when he was eighteen years old. He liked it so much that he ate eight more the same day. After thirty-nine, he's now eaten 25,000 Big Macs. That's an average of 641 hamburgers a year.

Okay, fine, so the guy is completely nuts. We know that. But what doesn't make sense is how he's still going. Spurlock eats McDonald's every day for a month and he almost goes into liver failure. Gorske does it every day of his life, and he's just fine. So fine that his cholesterol is only 156. (Anything under 200 is good.)

This raises the question, why don't the Big Macs have the same effect on Gorske as they do on Spurlock and other people?

Who knows?

Maybe it's because he doesn't get fries with his double decker Big Mac, which many people claim is the worst part of fast food.

Or maybe he's taking in fewer calories than the rest of us. If he limits his diet to about two Big Macs and Cokes a day, that means he's only consuming around 1400 calories, much less than most Americans since it's recommended that people who are only moderately active get at least 2000 calories every day.

Or maybe we are all just different. Some of us can eat a Big Mac—or two!—every day for forty years and still be tall, lean, and healthy. While others just look at a Big Mac and pop an artery. We've known for a long time that genetics play a huge role in our body shape and size. Isn't it possible that Gorske just has good genes and a high metabolism? His father is 81 and still kicking after all. It's really easy to think that people gain weight because they stuff their faces with crap all day long, but Gorske is living proof that a bad eater does not necessarily lead to a bad body.

I know people like Gorske—and lots of them. They shovel food in their mouths from sun up to sun down and never gain a pound. I kind of hate these people, but they do prove something we all like to forget: sometimes the biggest pigs are the hardest to spot.

Watch Gorske eat his 25,000th Big Mac here.

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