Big Mac Attack: Man Eats 25,000th Burger

From: http://www.foxnews.com/

Don Gorske bites into the 18,000th Big Mac he has eaten in this Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2001 file photo at Fond du lac High School, in Fond du Lac, Wis. The Fond du Lac man said he hit the 23,000 milestone in August 2008, continuing a culinary obsession that began May 17, 1972, and is fed by his obsessive-compulsive disorder. (AP/The Reporter)

Fond du Lac, Wis. – How many Big Macs have you eaten in your lifetime? Well, a Wisconsin man knows exactly how many of the iconic burgers he’s scarfed down over the years, and the number will probably blow your mind.

A special ceremony was planned Tuesday afternoon at McDonald’s in Fond du Lac for Don Gorske. That’s because, since 1972, Gorske has eaten at least two Big Macs a day, which means the 57-year-old will be eating his 25,000th Big Mac on the 39th anniversary of eating his first.

The Fond du Lac man says he ate nine on May 17, 1972 and has only missed nine days since then, for various reasons.

He has kept most of the boxes or receipts or has made specific notes in calendars that he’s kept.
Gorske says he probably has an obsessive-compulsive disorder but he doesn’t consider it a problem.

He jokes that 25,000 is a milestone because people didn’t think he’d live this long. But he says he recently saw a doctor who said he was in good health and his cholesterol is low.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

LeBron James and Dwight Howard McDonald’s Commercial

From: http://www.totalprosports.com/

Back in the day, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan went head to head for a Big Mac and fries. The acts of chomping down on Micky D's and playing sports are polar opposites, but who cares -- the commercial was "nothin' but net." We never even find out who won because neither Air Jordan or Larry Legend missed. It's better that way, kinda like Rocky and Apollo sparring at the end of Rocky 3. Charles Barkley even wondered if he could play one year later.

Flash Forward to 2010, over 15 years later. The update of the classic "Bird vs. Jordan" McDonald's Super Bowl commercial features modern NBA superstars Dwight Howard and LeBron James. King James sits down with a bag of, you guessed it, Big Mac and fries while Howard is practicing. Dwight offers to play for it, and you know after Superman's Orlando Magic beat Bron's Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs last year that LBJ was down. Especially considering the way he dunks in practice.

Before things got started, the two agreed to "no jumpshots" per the request of Howard. That was a nice little bit of riffing off of Bird's "no dunking" line in the original. After that, the dunk contest we wish we'd get to see at NBA All-Star Weekend went down. Flat-footed 540s. Quadruple pumps. Between-the-leg windmills. 360s from the free-throw line -- with Olympic-style landings. Sure, a little CGI and some special effects tricks were used, but it was still awesome. One of the best commercials of the night hands down. Check it out...



Adam Best is the senior editor of the FanSided Sports Network. You can also find his work at FlickSided, a film and entertainment site.

Big Mac index

From Economist.com

How many minutes to earn the price of a Big Mac?

THE size of your pay packet may be important, but so is its purchasing power. Helpfully, a UBS report published this week offers a handy guide to how long it takes a worker on the average net wage to earn the price of a Big Mac in 73 cities. Fast-food junkies are best off in Chicago, Toronto and Tokyo, where it takes a mere 12 minutes at work to afford a Big Mac. By contrast, employees must toil for over two hours to earn enough for a burger fix in Mexico City, Jakarta and Nairobi.

AP

Why Do Some People Never Get Fat? Scientists May Have the Answer

Remember the guy from Super Size Me who ate about 23,000 Bic Macs and never got fat? Ever wonder how he did it? Turns out he may have been born without the “fat enzyme.”

The enzyme MGAT2 is found in the intestines and determines the fate of our food by regulating how it is metabolized: It either makes fat go straight to your waistline, or converts it into energy. Scientists in California have discovered that when mice are missing the gene for MGAT2, they can eat whatever they want and never have to worry about getting fat.

The University of California at San Francisco knocked out the gene in experimental mice to see how their bodies grew after feeding them different diets. When the normal and experimental mice were fed a diet low in fat, both sets of mice grew the same way. But when the mice were eating a 60 percent fat diet (i.e., a typical American diet), the experimental mice weighed 40 percent less and had 50 percent less fat than the normal mice.

Not only does decreasing MGAT activity in mice reduce their chances of packing on the pounds, it also prevents them from developing other obesity-related problems such as fatty livers and glucose intolerance. While the researchers are unsure of precisely how the experimental mice kept the weight off, they think that when the mice are missing the MGAT2 enzyme, their body ultimately doesn’t store or use the fat.

Still, don’t go on a Big Mac binge just yet: Until scientist can figure out how to manipulate this gene to create the magic skinny pill, we will continue to metabolize food like we did when we were hunters and gathers.