Claiming to have incredibly strong teeth and powerful gastric juices, Michel Lotito's biggest accomplishment was purportedly eating a Cessna 150 airplane — but not everyone believes he finished the whole thing.
PA Images/Alamy Stock PhotoMichel Lotito, pictured at the 1997 London Motorshow.
If someone asked you about your favorite food, a Cessna 150 airplane probably wouldn’t be the first thing that came to mind.
For Michel Lotito, France’s Monsieur Mangetout (or Mr. Eat-All), a plane was just one of the many bizarre objects that he reportedly consumed during his long career as a performer. Though some have cast doubt on the claim that Lotito actually finished the whole aircraft, it’s clear that he was able to swallow countless unusual items that would kill most people.
Ever since he was a child, Lotito consumed inedible and dangerous objects like glass, metal, and rubber. His strange talent propelled him to fame and ultimately earned him a Guinness World Record for the strangest diet.
The Early Life Of Monsieur Mangetout
Guinness World Records/YouTubeMichel Lotito biting into a bicycle.
Michel Lotito was born on June 15, 1950, in Grenoble, France. His habit for eating unusual items began early on. Some sources state he started eating glass at age eight or nine, while others claim he started as young as six.
The Guinness World Records, which later awarded him for having the strangest diet, wrote that Lotito “first became aware of his ability when a glass from which he was drinking, broke and he began chewing the fragments.” Lotito already knew that other people had successfully eaten glass in the past, and he was pleased to discover that he could too.
Today, this type of behavior is often described as pica, a psychological disorder that makes people crave non-nutritious, inedible substances.
Guinness World Records/YouTubeMichel Lotito poses for a photo with a bicycle tire in his mouth.
Lotito quickly gained a reputation in his hometown for his hearty and unusual appetite. His local fame eventually allowed him to monetize his talents through live performances that drew increasingly larger crowds. Before he knew it, Michel Lotito was performing on an international stage.
Michel Lotito Rises To International Stardom
Guinness World Records/YouTubeMichel Lotito, now often known as the “guy who ate a plane,” enjoying a metal meal.
After he went public with his talent at age 16, Michel Lotito demonstrated his unique abilities to captivated audiences, consuming metal, glass, rubber, and even more dangerous items like nails. His performances earned him the name Monsieur Mangetout (Mr. Eat-All). Before long, his fans wanted more.
“People started to ask me if I wanted to eat something bigger and so I said, ‘OK, I think I can eat a bicycle.’ It was a great success — they called me for TV shows in South America and Canada,” he told Guinness World Records.
Lotito also claimed to have minimal reactions to pain, encouraging audiences to light matches under his fingernails, throw darts at his back, and perform other acts of torture that most people would never agree to.
In 1978, the Canadian newspaper The Leader-Post reported that Lotito had consumed razor blades, plates, and 15 pounds of a bicycle over 12 days, washing it all down with 25 gallons of water and 10 bottles of mineral oil.
That same year, Lotito claimed to have started eating a Cessna 150 airplane. He allegedly finished eating the plane two years later, though there’s never been any hard proof that he was able to consume the whole aircraft.
Either way, Lotito emphasized that digesting these objects in small pieces and keeping his body “well-lubricated” with mineral oil and water prevented the more harmful materials from scratching or cutting his insides. According to doctors who examined him, his internal organs appeared to be normal, despite his bizarre and often dangerous eating habits.
“I would always ask for a doctor’s assistance. They would give me all sorts of advice, such as to eat artichokes or paraffin oils together with metal to make things easier, but I soon realized that I was better off simply drinking several liters of water,” Lotito told the Guinness World Records.
Ironically, it was normal foods like bananas and hard-boiled eggs that reportedly caused discomfort for Lotito, including heartburn and indigestion.
Guinness World Records/YouTubeMichel Lotito often ate small pieces of metal before becoming famous as the “guy who ate a plane.”
By the end of his career, Lotito had reportedly consumed at least 18 bicycles, 15 supermarket carts, seven TV sets, six chandeliers, two beds, a pair of skis, a coffin, and a computer. And between 1959 and 1997, Lotito “had eaten nearly 9 tons of metal,” according to the Guinness World Records.
The Orthodox Death Of An Unorthodox Man
Guinness World Records/YouTubeMichel Lotito, the “guy who ate a plane,” posing for the Guinness World Records.
For most people, following Michel Lotito’s diet would result in severe intestinal damage or even death. So what made him different?
According to some doctors who examined Lotito, the Frenchman purportedly had a stomach lining that was two times thicker than normal. On top of that, gastroenterologists who X-rayed his stomach said that he was able to consume about two pounds of metal per day.
“My teeth are incredibly strong — their strength has been measured at eight tonnes per centimeter squared. But I also secrete strong juices that cause razor blades to melt in my mouth; my gastric juices are so powerful that, during an endoscopy, doctors observed juices attacking objects with a corrosive foam that ate the metal,” Lotito once boasted.
However, Lotito’s lifelong physician, Bernard Morzol, insisted that Lotito’s body wasn’t that different from other people’s bodies and described Lotito’s eating habits as “more a mental problem” than his biological destiny.
“We’ve never found a valid medical explanation — biopsies and blood tests have shown that his organism is just like anybody else’s… Aggressing his stomach and intestines like this inevitably raises the question of survival, but we don’t have an answer. He’s a prototype; we don’t know what will happen,” Morzol said of his patient, according to the Guinness World Records.
Lotito was eventually given a Guinness World Record for the strangest diet. At one point, he was awarded a brass plaque, which he ended up eating.
On June 25, 2007, Michel Lotito died at age 57. It was reported that he died of natural causes, but many believe his strange diet had an impact on his early demise. Not long before he perished, his doctor noted that his body was “beginning to wear out” after decades of eating unusual objects.
Still, years after Lotito’s death, the world remains enthralled with his strange diet and his seemingly superhuman abilities. His legacy as the man who ate metal continues to captivate and mystify, leaving us to wonder what other extraordinary feats the human body might be capable of.
After reading about Michel Lotito, the guy who allegedly ate a plane, dive into the story of Tarrare, the 18th-century French showman who ate enough to feed 15 people. Then, learn about 10 of the weirdest people in history.
