Hero Eats Nothing But Pizza For 25 Years

There is a man out there who eats nothing but pizza. Truly nothing — nothing! — other than hot, cheesy, bready, saucey pizza.

Seriously, he’s real. His name is Dan Janssen, he’s 38, and for the past 25 years he has survived on pizza alone. He is a fully functional human, employed as a woodworker in Maryland, though he does have diabetes and occasionally blacks out when his blood sugar dips too low.

He sat down with his friend at VICE to discuss this extreme lifestyle choice in detail. He began with the basics:

I’ve been eating pizza exclusively every day of my life for the past 25 years, and I’m not just talking about a slice of pizza every day. I usually eat an entire 14″ pizza, and I only eat cheese pizza. I never get sick of it. If I go to one pizza shop or another brand, it’s like eating a completely different meal.

Janssen wasn’t always on the pizza-only diet, though. It all began when, as a teenager, he decided to become a vegetarian for ethical reasons. But he hated vegetables, so he just decided to start surviving on pizza alone. He says he knows he must sound “like a horribly unhealthy and fat person” but he says he’s in fact thin, has tons of energy and feels great every day.

But not all pizza is created equal to Janssen. He said the best he’s ever had was at a joint called Pontillo’s in upstate New York. But clearly, he’s not too picky. “Pizza is like sex,” he told VICE, “even when it’s bad, it’s good.”

Contact us at letters@time.com.