Pizza, mountain dew, and nachos....

Observe the gamer in his native habitat.

 

Crumbs strewn over his stale t-shirt; crumpled cans of energy drink lay about; you can see evidence in the gamer's beady eyes of the early onset of sugar/salt-related dementia; the requisite unmade bed sits in the background... the gamer begins to resemble his food: beige, tasteless, and incoherent.

 

Or are we? Obviously the afore-posted video is an example of a stereotype on steroids. Sure some of us might let the deskspace get a little messy... or even resort to what's known as board chow (http://www.inktank.com/files/comics/2001-04-04-board-chow.gif) from time to time. Yes, that's what you get when you turn your keyboard over and shake out the crumbs (?). I suppose you could call it a kind of cooking.

 

Quite a lot of the more recent advances in preservative rich, salt-laden, fat-full scrummy yummy junk food seems to call out to the raider. It's cheap, fast, accessible, and seems to satiate our craving for salt or sugar. We like our energy boosts from those orange energy drinks or greenish-coloured fizzy sodas. We want that fast, fun finger food that seems to come in those colourful packages with really "kewl" nonsensical "catchy" labels.

 

But is that really all we eat and drink? I am not so sure, honestly! At least not always. Yes, I know the guys who run down to the chippy (fish and chip shop for you non-British) to get some chips and curry during the 10 minute raid break or the ones who do seem to always have "something" in the oven or microwave during the raid (indicated by the "AFK brb, oven done") which may or may not be a pizza or a hot pocket, but I also know the guys who like eating an apple during the raid or keep dashing to the loo because they can't stop drinking water. Water? As of my last check, water received the highest number of votes (51%!) in my poll as one of up to two drinks you might have next to you by the computer while you raid. Water! Your mothers would be so proud of you. Or maybe that just means that those who actually bother to come to my research blog and vote are a particular type of raider. :)

 

So this got me thinking the other night... what do we like to eat and what do we like to drink during raid times? What kind of food or drink disasters have we had? Have you splurged on a by-the-computer fridge to enable your need for accessible, cold fizzy drinks? Have you ever tried to actually cook your dinner in between pulls? What kind of food photos could you snap of yourself during a raid? Would you share your photo of your desktop with that nice bowl of ice cream sitting beside your keyboard? Or that glass of wine? What about during progress or levelling up time? Do you spend more time thinking about your food and how you will let it fuel the intense race? I have seen some photos of some people's food stash before the big expansions and I admit to being quite impressed!

 

So to start off this social experiment into the food and drink habits of the raider in the wild, I'm starting a forum thread and would like to invite you to post any photos, anecdotes, videos, or comments about your relationship with food/drink as you raid. I'm also curious about those of you who eat and drink nothing during a raid (that has worked out to be 6% who drink nothing and 23% who eat nothing, at least half of the time). Is that just because there is nothing available, you're too busy on the raid, or you just prefer not to be distracted by it? Maybe you had a food/drink related disaster that's warned you off of consumables during the raid!

 

After we've collected enough data and comments, I'll write a follow-up piece to try and capture what we've all shared and will also be posting some raiding recipes! These will hopefully be proven, tested recipes but I can't guarantee they'll be any good!