Metallica's Lars Ulrich Eats About 20 Pancakes a Day

What kind of breakfast does it take to fuel a metal drummer? Blood sausage or runny egg yolks or a tofu scramble? Perhaps a constant supply of charred goat meat and cold black coffee? You might think that, but you'd be wrong. Because for Lars Ulrich, the drummer of Metallica, the master of puppets himself, the man who laid down the beat for "Enter Sandman" among many other classics, the answer is much simpler: pancakes. But not just any pancakes, and not just a moderate amount In an interview with the New York Post about Metallica's new album Hardwired, Ulrich revealed that he eats about 20 pancakes a day.

In case you haven't seen a picture of Lars Ulrich lately, dude is fit, particularly for a 52-year-old who has been living the metal lifestyle for decades. So that 20 pancakes a day thing might be puzzling until you realize that he's not just going through box after box of Bisquick. "Well, I go running pretty much every day for 30 to 45 minutes," Ulrich told the Post. "That’s an expected one. But a significant part of my diet are these oat pancakes that I eat. They’re made of egg whites, oats, fat-free yogurt and a little Stevia. That’s my carbs. It’s a recipe that comes from the French nutritionist Pierre Dukan."

Oh, like, health pancakes? That's less fun, but it explains a lot. (Pierre Dukan, who Ulrich namechecks, is the man behind the Dukan Diet, a weight loss and healthfulness strategy that's similar to the paleo diet.) "I eat about 20 of them a day—I’m never more than six feet away from a pancake at any time!" Ulrich continued. "It’s the fuel to the drumming in Metallica."

Not sure that I'll be trading in the sweet, sweet pleasures of refined flour and sugar for oats, egg whites, and stevia, but "never 6 feet away from a pancake at any time" is now definitely a life goal, thank you Lars.