Meet The Man Who Ate An Entire Plane

Lotito was born in 1950 and grew up in the French city of Grenoble. He seemed to be just like any other young kid during the first few years of his life. However, things began to change when he turned eight.

As Lotito began to perfect these techniques, he noticed something rather strange. Soon, he found that his tolerance for pain was a lot higher than it had been before. The methods he was trying, which were said to help with pain control, were seemingly working.

“I accidentally broke a glass while drinking, and I had a piece in my mouth,” Lotito explained during an interview for the 2006 edition of Guinness World Records. “I knew other people had eaten glass in the past and decided that I could do it as well.”

“Then I moved on to razor blades, plates, and small pieces of metal such as nuts and bolts,” Lotito continued. That’s a dinner party spread we’d like to avoid! But his jaw-dropping talent soon began attracting a lot of attention.

It’s almost impossible to visualize, right? How do you eat a bike? Where would you even start? Well, Lotito had a method that made the task easier for himself. Before tucking into his metal meal, the bicycle was sliced into tiny pieces.

Now, for the vast majority of us, that would still prove to be a pretty deadly snack. Yet Lotito came out unscathed. Touching on his preparation, he explained, “I would always ask for a doctor’s assistance.

Lotito’s wild skill proved to be extremely profitable. After making it to the small screen, he was bringing in roughly $1,000 for each appearance. And the guy wasn’t just gulping down glass and metal, either.

Ultimately, though, it was the eating that earned Lotito a place in the record books. It had been the spring of 1977 when he’d sat down to snack on a bike, and he made history in the process. Given the size of the cycle, it was impossible to eat it in a single sitting, as we would with a standard meal.

Guinness World Records eventually acknowledged Lotito’s achievement, revealing that no one else had eaten a bike that quickly. And he wasn’t done there. Now known as Monsieur Mangetout — which translates to “Mr. Eat All,” — he gave it a go again in 1978. 

Lotito didn’t just eat the bike over those 12 days, either. He had sides, too! And we’re not talking salads or helpings of bread here. In keeping with his unique diet, Monsieur Mangetout downed a glass, a pair of plates, and 100 razor blades.

When the fair ended, Lotito walked away with a $5,000 paycheck. In today’s money, that’s the equivalent of more than $21,000 in Canada or $15,000 in America. It had been quite the sum to take back to France at the time.

Lotito’s inclusion in the 1979 Guinness World Records was pretty notable in itself. The publishers were extremely careful when it came to sharing “potentially dangerous records,” as they didn’t want anyone to hurt themselves trying to break them.

In other words, who else would want to try and eat a bike at all, never mind in record time? We can’t imagine that folks were queuing up around the block for the chance!

So what kind of aircraft was Lotito eyeing up? He didn’t intend to go for something too big: Jumbo Jets weren’t on the menu! Instead, Monsieur Mangetout researched smaller plane models, before, ahem, landing on the right one.

Just as with the bikes, the airplane was cut into tiny pieces by Lotito with a power tool. This in itself would have represented a laborious job. Once that was out of the way, using the same method as always, he took his first bite of the Cessna 150 in 1978.

Across the next two years, Lotito slowly worked his way through the airplane, swallowing each bite-sized chunk. It was an epic undertaking, to say the least. And by 1980 it was finally over: the Cessna 150 was no more.

Lotito went on to appear in the Guinness Book of Records 1984, where it was revealed that he’d gulped down seven televisions and a grocery store cart. Then, some 15 years later, all of his culinary achievements were summed up in one jaw-dropping list.

Lotito chomped down on a Guinness World Records plaque as well: he had no interest in hanging the brass plate on his wall. So overall, how much metal did this guy ingest across his life?

So how did Lotito manage to pull off these crazy eating stunts without wrecking his body? And come to think of it, ignoring the financial rewards, why was he so transfixed on metal and glass in particular?

Lotito believed that his drive to eat metal was more down to his unique biology. As he told Guinness World Records 2006, “My teeth are incredibly strong — their strength has been measured at 8 tons per centimeter squared.

As for his internal organs, it was said that Lotito’s intestines and stomach had a very thick lining. Due to that, the metal and glass couldn’t leave him with life-threatening injuries at the end of each meal. Considering all of that, the guy sounds almost superhuman!

But how did scientists view Lotito’s abilities? Was this more than just an extreme example of pica? Well, stomach experts were taken aback by the manner in which his body could digest metal: he ate up to 2 pounds each day.

Dr. Morzol told the cameras, “We cannot explain [Lotito’s ability]. He’s been examined from every angle by different doctors. With gastroenterologists, we’ve studied the passage of these ingredients into his blood, and the modification their absorption could bring about. But we’ve never found a valid medical explanation.”

“Biopsies and blood tests have shown that [Lotito’s] organism is just like anyone else’s,” Dr. Morzol continued. “In fact, it’s more [of] a mental problem. He’s been doing this for nearly 30 years, so his [body] is beginning to wear out.”

Dr. Morzol added, “Aggressing [Lotito’s] stomach and intestines like this inevitably raises the question of survival. But we don’t have an answer. He’s a prototype, we just don’t know what will happen. We can only put him on his guard.”

Mrs. Lotito informed Wild and Weird, “I’m always afraid that something will happen to [my husband when he eats metal and glass]. There is always an element of risk in the things he does, but in order to reassure him, I never let him see this fear.”

Back in the early 1900s, a man named Henry Harrison became a well-known sideshow act. During each of his displays, he encouraged the crowd to throw any object onto the stage, which he’d then go on to eat.

Elsewhere, John Fasel was another “sideshow eater” from that era. He swallowed pocket watches and keys among other things, but unlike Harrison and Lotito the guy couldn’t properly digest the metal in his stomach. And it led to a shocking moment in 1901.

Again, that highlights just how strong Lotito’s stomach was. Sadly, though, he didn’t get the chance to grow old with his wife: Monsieur Mangetout died at the age of 57 in June 2007.