Wisconsin Man Eats His 30,000th Big Mac, Averaging Nearly 2 Per Day for 46 Years

Don Gorske has been eating the same burger for 46 years.

Can you imagine eating the same thing every day for a week? Well, Don Gorske has been eating the same burger for 46 years.

The 64-year-old Wisconsin native consumed his 30,000th McDonald’s Big Mac in the same location where he had his first taste of the burger when he was 18, Thrillist reports. Gorske, a retired prison guard, broke the Guinness World Record for Most Big Macs consumed in August 2016, when he chowed down on his 28,788th burger.

Prior to Gorske’s first bite of his milestone burger on Friday, a crowd gathered to watch him eat the all-beef patty topped with special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, wedged inside a sesame-seed bun.

According to his own estimations, backed up by receipts, wrappers, and old containers, Gorske concludes it took him 365 days to eat his first 1,000 Big Macs, and has only forgone the burger around eight days over the past 46 years. On average, he’s consumed nearly two Big Macs each day. Once, he drove all the way to the McDonald’s in a snowstorm to satisfy his craving, but the restaurant was closed. One of his other burger-less days came when his mother died, because she requested he didn’t eat the burger in honor of her passing.

If Gorske looks familiar, it’s probably from his appearance in Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 documentary Supersize Me, where he was dubbed a “Big Mac expert” and explained the extent of his obsession with the McDonald’s burger.
“As soon as I got my first car, this is the first place I came to,” Gorske said in the film. “The first day I came here I ate nine Big Macs. It was like I couldn’t get enough hamburger at that time.”

Gorske went on to explain that he usually eats two of the burgers a day. “Approximately 90 percent of my solid diet is probably Big Macs,” he said.

The Big Mac connoisseur even proposed to his wife under the Golden Arches in the parking lot, and admitted he’s loyal to McDonald’s, having eaten only one Whopper in his lifetime.

“A guy gave me five bucks to eat a Whopper,” he said. “So after I ate the Whopper, I took my five bucks over to McDonald’s and got some Big Macs.”

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You may imagine that an all-Big Mac diet would make him extremely unhealthy, but Gorske once he appeared on the The Ellen Degeneres Show to have his cholesterol checked—and it reported at a steady 140 mg/dL. In 2006, he ran the San Diego marathon and crossed the finish line holding his 21,387th Big Mac.

“People make fun of me, but it never bothered me,” he told the Fond du Lac Reporter. “At my last medical check-up I had low cholesterol and my blood pressure was perfect.”

The fast-food chain, who has recently announced menu changes as part of an effort to offer healthier options, offered their official congratulations to Gorske. A representative from the headquarters told the Fond du Lac, “We are lovin’ Don Gorske’s enthusiasm for our iconic Big Mac sandwich and appreciate his ongoing loyalty.”

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