Breakfast, lunch, dinner: it’s pizza pizza pizza for Dan Jansen. We asked ourselves: isn’t this unbalanced diet really unhealthy? We visit the passionate pizza guy in, where else, the USA.
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00:00we're in Baltimore on the American East Coast here we want to meet Dan Jensen the
00:14man who has allegedly only eaten pizza for the past 25 years we met of course
00:20in a pizzeria and wanted to know firsthand is it really true I've been
00:27eating pizza for breakfast lunch and dinner every day for 25 years 99.9% of
00:36my diet is pizza and cheese pizza I don't like toppings three cheese pizzas
00:42per day that surely can't be healthy although we have to admit that the 40
00:48year old looks in pretty good shape Dan is aware of how radical his diet is I'm
00:56here to encourage all kids you don't need to eat healthy children you need to
01:01eat pizza pizza is a wonderful you have your vegetables in the sauce you have
01:07your cheese which dairy and then you have your own carbohydrates for energy so I
01:12know it's not good to have carbohydrates these days there's sort of a push
01:15against it but I say go for it this approach has made Dan really famous in
01:22in the pizzeria he's treated as a guest of honor with whom the cooks also like
01:27to pose for a picture on the internet Dan is celebrated by die-hard pizza lovers
01:33as a hero the man who has eaten almost 30,000 pizza so far has become a media
01:39phenomenon and that sometimes brings bizarre results it can be overwhelming
01:45probably the most unusual request I got was from South Korean national
01:52television wanted either me to go there or them to come here and interview me
01:58because they said I disproved to the Western conspiracy against green and they
02:03wanted me to sort of do propaganda for them for their country I turn that down
02:11Dan gets his injection ready after the meal because he's a diabetic he has to
02:17inject a dose of insulin after each meal we're dumbfounded shouldn't he be
02:24eating a lot more responsibly with diabetes and eat more balanced food
02:31appreciate it later we'll go with him to a doctor for a thorough examination but
02:37first shopping in the supermarket
02:43relatively straight forward for the pizza man first he goes to the freezers he
02:48gets frozen pizza for the next few weeks
02:52so typical week I'd probably get four or five of these just to have it back up to half
03:04Dan isn't eating gourmet pizza at the moment the frozen pizzas are a perfect lunch when he
03:10doesn't have time to stop by the pizzeria but for tonight he's invited guests over and there will
03:16even be baked pizza and since not all his friends only like cheese pizza he also has to buy something
03:25for toppings vegetables for example that's not easy for Dan the only one that I'm familiar with this
03:33the green kind of pepper okay so I didn't even know they made orange peppers until right now
03:38no I would never never why what advantage this is just like it's like eating a green sponge I
03:47would never I can get my vitamins from a Flintstones slowly we realize that Dan has a real problem
03:56he's easily disgusted especially by vegetables pizza isn't just his passion he hardly likes anything
04:05else beyond that his lifestyle is pretty healthy by the way as a carpenter he spends a lot of time
04:12on his feet in addition he works out several times a week this helps him in coping with over 4,000 pizza
04:20calories per day Dan likes his pizza in a very American way lots of dough lots of
04:26tomato sauce and extra cheese what he doesn't like is our version all the German pizza I tried
04:33was terrible maybe they got their pizza game going maybe they changed maybe I didn't go to the right
04:42restaurants but I did try pizza in Germany and the guy who only eats pizza for his in you know for
04:49the past 25 years when I was in Germany I eat pretzels the fatty American pizza is ready
04:56after 12 minutes in the oven up next come the vegetable pizzas for the guests a difficult task for the man
05:03who is so disgusted by vegetables it's a good thing that Dan's wife is here she's a vegetarian and wants
05:12to help her husband with the preparation a pretty tough affair I think that's going to be gross on
05:21pizza but I know the trend today is to eat gross things so let's do it madeline and Dan have been
05:33married for two years and she's been trying to move her husband away from the exclusive pizza diet for
05:39at least as long so far without success I would at first I wasn't bothered by it at all really I thought
05:49that's fine you know everyone has their own weird eating habits but now I do kind of worry about the
05:57way that it affects it's his health if not now then later on down the line is she right we'll check
06:05it out later at the doctor's visit but for now the guests arrive friends that Dan has known since his
06:13childhood he grew up in Baltimore they assured us that Dan has been eating almost nothing but pizza
06:19since he was 15 years old I wasn't shocked that we were having pizza I'm shocked that he made the
06:29pizza but I know when I come here it's gonna be pizza namely cheese pizza the classic pizza margarita
06:37here in America it's usually soggier and thicker than ours but it's well received by the group but what
06:47about the vegetable pizza Dan is actually trying a bite for his wife's sake and yeah it's good you
07:00can eat the rest Dan sticks to the cheese pizza it's surprisingly not so bad nutritionally pizza
07:09contains carbohydrates in the dough minerals and vitamins in the tomato sauce calcium and protein in
07:15the cheese but cheese is fatty 30 grams per pizza almost half an adult's daily requirement and a cheese
07:27pizza has very little fiber you should eat 30 to 50 grams per day preferably from whole grains fruits
07:35and vegetables but Dan never eats it so does he have symptoms of a specific deficiency we want to find
07:43out from the doctor I am a little bit nervous every time I go to the doctor the worst thing that she
07:50could tell me would be that I have to stop eating pizza we'll see Dan is now undergoing a thorough checkup for
08:01us he gave a blood sample a few days ago now we'll know how his pizza only diet really affects his body how
08:16are his digestion and cholesterol levels and how much does a pizza diet affect his diabetes the results are in
08:25good or bad news for Dan right now you know as a 40 year old with insulin dependent diabetes you're
08:33doing extremely well it's not a vitamin complete diet you are getting your basic energy sources there and
08:38because it's a high fat food that's probably helping you with keeping your blood sugar more stable blood
08:45levels and cholesterol everything okay to our surprise Dan is very healthy nevertheless the doctor gives him a
08:53warning doing this has been very helpful for him but I wouldn't recommend this for for anybody unless
08:59they check with their doctors you know it's very it's a lot of um fast foods high fat unhealthy fats and
09:06very low and and vegetables so vegetables are such heart healthy things if you're going to do grains
09:11doing whole grains conclusion a pizza diet almost without vitamins and fiber is not recommended Dan is an
09:19exception he's relatively young and active as a diabetic he has to control his diet for him such a one-sided diet isn't
09:28wrong it was sort of reassuring to hear that confirmation and as she said there are things that I can improve things I
09:37can work on but it was a relief now the pizza king has no real reason to eat anything else
09:46will I ever get sick of pizza I hope that day never comes and if it does put a bullet in my head