If chowing down on Big Mac hamburgers daily for more than 50 years had ever inflicted any harm on him, Donald Gorske would probably get himself evaluated for an obsessive disorder, he admitted.
But he has attained a measure of fame, having held since 1999 the Guinness World Record for most Big Macs eaten over a lifetime – while maintaining his cholesterol and blood sugar levels have always been normal.
And following through on a promise to never complain about her lack of cooking was all he needed to do to secure his wife’s eternal support for his habit – despite experts’ ubiquitous warnings that regular consumption of McDonald’s and other fast food packed with calories, sodium, sugar and fat could contribute to weight gain, obesity and other health problems.
As Gorske put it: “There’s nothing to make it be called a disorder.”
Gorske, 71, has been back in the news in some corners of the internet after extending his Guinness record to more than 35,000 in mid-March, documenting each dispatched burger with receipts and containers.
The Guardian used the occasion – achieved by eating Big Macs twice daily since 17 May 1972 – to ask him to detail precisely how deep was his devotion to McDonald’s signature product, given the fascination it has caused among some in the public for years.
The devotion evidently is quite deep.
Among the most visible reminders of it is an electric stove that Gorske and his wife, Mary, bought before their wedding in 1975. It looks almost as new as the day they installed it in their kitchen because his unique diet does not require much cooking.
“It’s more or less a decoration,” said the retired corrections officer from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. “We needed it to fill the space in between the cupboards.
“There’s nothing to make me want to use a stove ever.”
Then there’s the booth with his name on it at the McDonald’s closest to his home. It is inside the second iteration of that McDonald’s, which was opened in 2008 on the same property but on a spot just over from its torn-down predecessor.
Gorske says the booth marks the exact location where he proposed marriage to Mary, when that location was still a parking lot outside the original McDonald’s there. And that booth is where he prefers to dine on the Big Macs he occasionally chooses to eat at the restaurant. Most Big Macs he brings home to refrigerate or freeze and then microwave to cut down on gasoline expenses – as well as to ensure he never loses access to his favorite burger in the event of, say, a blizzard.
“That’s a special spot to me,” said Gorske, referring to his booth. He added that he appreciates how the owner of that McDonald’s has also put up a picture of him on a wall there.
Gorske’s gargantuan collection of Big Mac containers is another of the visuals created by his life’s pursuit that he considers to be the most striking.
He stored the cartons in his attic until it ran out of capacity in 2006. Since then, Gorske has been keeping his containers in his basement – but they have stacked up so high that it tends to overwhelm visitors who get to see his collection.
“You can rub your hand over just hundreds and hundreds of cartons,” Gorske said. “And what I always tell people is that – how I look at it – is it’s time. You know, every two cartons is a day of my life, and it’s kind of a weird thing when you see something like that.”
Two cartons in particular which are neither in his basement nor attic – but permanently in his freezer – hold the last Big Macs he bought from the torn-down McDonald’s outside of which he proposed to Mary, with whom he has a son. He regards them as a dear memento.
“The wife jokes that she probably will just throw them in the coffin with me because I’ll never get around to eating those,” Gorske said.
Gorske said he channels much of the rest of his free time into participating in local senior bowling leagues four times weekly. He doesn’t have a cell phone or a computer and therefore doesn’t surf the internet, though he understands from loved ones that many are aware of his record-setting affinity for the item that most McDonald’s eateries list as No 1 on their menu.
He reiterated advice he has given before for people who are potentially thinking about gunning for his Big Mac eating crown: don’t.
“For somebody to want to do that, you’re going to have to eat Big Macs for 50 years … and you’re going to have to really like Big Macs,” Gorske said. “It’s such an easy thing for me to do because I already do it every day.
“I’m just one of them people that can eat Big Macs constantly, and it’s not going to affect my health at all.”
