Man eats 19,000 Big Macs

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

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What’s six feet tall, has two arms, two legs, a long pony tail, has been on “Oprah,” is a question in the game Trivial Pursuit and is listed in the Guinness’ “Book of World Records”?

 

If you answered “that guy who keeps track of all the Big Macs he’s eaten,” you would be right.

 

Fond du Lac resident Don Gorske bit into his 19,000th Big Mac on Tuesday at his customary McDonald’s on Military Road.

 

“No matter how bad my day is, everything is always OK when I come here at the end of it and have my Big Mac,” Gorske, 49, a prison guard in Waupun, said.

 

It’s not that Gorske eats more than anyone else – in fact, he probably eats less than the average person. It’s just that he counts what he eats and keeps track of it in a notebook.

 

“I admit I’m obsessive compulsive,” he says. “I have so many compulsions.”

 

At 6 feet tall and a slim 180 pounds (sometimes less) Gorske proves that if you love a food, it doesn’t have to make you fat.

 

But Gorske’s secret to svelteness lies not in a magical metabolism but in stretching out the quantity over several decades — and eating little else but that food item.

 

At one or two Big Macs per day and little else beside Coke, he probably eats fewer calories than many people do.

 

In fact, defense attorneys for McDonald’s in an obesity lawsuit (two overweight teenagers tried to sue McDonald’s for causing them to be overweight) used Gorske as an example of someone who ate fast food daily but remained trim. A February issue of Newsweek listed Gorske and Subway dieter Jason Fogle as two such examples used by the defense.

 

A Big Mac contains 590 calories, 310 (34 grams) of which come from fat, according to nutrition literature provided by McDonald’s. That’s a lot of fat, but Gorske says his cholesterol level remains a low 155.

 

His wife Mary, a registered nurse, says it’s a matter of good genes and not his unusual dietary habits. Mary and son, Gideon, 20, don’t share Gorske’s love of Big Macs.

 

“If I eat the same thing too often, I get sick of it really fast,” Gideon, a psychology major at UW-Fond du Lac, said.

 

Gorske has subsisted on a diet almost exclusively of Big Macs, small fries and regular Cokes since 1972, when he first got his driver’s license and drove to the Military Road McDonald’s for a meal.

 

He has been collecting several decades worth of McDonald’s cups, Happy Meal toys and other memorabilia from the fast food chain. He dreams of some day being able to open a museum in which to exhibit his collection.

 

Gorske also travels to baseball parks and NASCAR tracks nationwide and eats Big Macs, which he photographs, in each site.

 

“I usually like to have a witness with me,” he said. “Sometimes it’s kind of embarrassing for them to take a picture of a guy holding a Big Mac, though.”

 

He says he never gets bored with the humble fare and Mary, his wife of 27 years, doesn’t mind not having to cook.

 

Gorske says it’s the world’s most perfect food and that he wouldn’t know what else to eat if it weren’t for Big Macs.

 

“I’d be clueless,” he said, adding that he ate a piece of pizza instead of a second Big Mac of the day recently, but it “just wasn’t the same.”

 

“It wasn’t my first choice,” he said.

 

With the troubled economy, fast food chains such as Hardees and Burger King have closed many of their restaurants. The McDonald’s corporation has also suffered in recent years. What if the chain goes bankrupt?

 

“It’ll never go bankrupt, and besides, if I had to, I’d buy this place,” he said, referring to the Military Road franchise. “That’s how much I like it.”

 

I don't know how he did it, but I couldn't stand to eat nothing but 2 Big Macs a day..

[Guest Spaceman Spiff]

::adds "Don Gorske" to the "List of Things to Survive a Nuclear War", behind "cockroaches" and "Keith Richards"::

[Guest MaxPower27]

::Reminds Spiff to add "The Big Gold Belt"::

[Guest RepoMan]

That's just really sad. He going to have a heart attack by the end of the decade.

[Guest El Satanico]

If he's ate 2 a day for over 20 years and is only 180 at 6 feet tall, I'd say he'll be fine.

[Guest Kingpk]

Can we have a moment of silence for this man's arteries?

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Thank you.

[Guest Choken One]

Just because he ate two of these bad boys a day doesn't mean he gonna have a heart attackkk

[Guest SP-1]

It said his cholesterol is 155. And as Satanico said, at those figures considering that diet . . . amazingly enough it appears the guy will be fine.

 

 

That's ALOT of Big Mac's though.

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

The sad point of the story, isn't that the man has eaten 19,000 Big Macs, its that he's documented every one he's eaten..

[Guest My Eyebrow is on fire]

Big macs taste like shit

[Guest starvenger]

The sad point of the story, isn't that the man has eaten 19,000 Big Macs, its that he's documented every one he's eaten..

True. Still, this guy has a diet of roughly 2000 calories a day, so he's probably not in any danger of becoming a fat ass.

[Guest treble charged]

Good thing he didn't get hooked on the Arch Deluxe.

[Guest redbaron51]

so what is his real job then?

[Guest El Satanico]

The article said he's a prison guard

[Guest RepoMan]

If he lifts or something it's not that bad then, but It going to catch up him eventually.

[Guest Choken One]

The sad point of the story, isn't that the man has eaten 19,000 Big Macs, its that he's documented every one he's eaten..

It isn't THAT sad...A lot of people have quirky hobbies...

 

I remember a guy who collects his fucking belly lint...

[Guest ElectricRaccoon]

If he lifts or something it's not that bad then, but It going to catch up him eventually.

One word - scurvy. I doubt Big Mac lettuce is meeting all of his vitamin needs.

[Guest snuffbox]

I have now found a record worth breaking!