Living With a Nerd

Gaming is a hobby that can require a large time investment.  So how is a gamer supposed to stay in shape?  With this third entry in our Healthy Gamer series, we explore even more healthy snacks and beverages for the hardcore gamer.

Healthy Beverages

The tea mentioned in our previous Healthy Gamer entry is still my favorite drink for gaming, but there are other healthy alternatives.  Filtered water is an excellent choice, but don’t waste your money on bottled water; just go out and get something like this or this. If you want something small to keep next to your desk (and you don’t mind room temp water), go with something like this or this.  Bottled water is obscenely expensive compared to how much you will get out of a water filter, plus the amount of petroleum used annually to produce the bottles is insane.

Another good choice is various juices, although due to their high amount of natural sugar you should limit how much you consume at a time.  Mango Nectar is one of my favorites, but you should try a few different brands; they all have very different textures, so make sure you really enjoy a particular brand before you go buying a whole case. Acai berry juice can be super tasty, but the real stuff can get quite expensive.

Although it tastes pretty good, you should try to stay away from Vitamin Water.  It contains crystalline fructose, which is even worse than high fructose corn syrup.

Gaming friendly snacks

You don’t just want healthy snacks while gaming, you want snacks conducive to game playing.  As mentioned in our previous Healthy Gamer article, beef jerky best fits this need.   Jerky isn’t the only healthy choice, however…pitted green olives make an EXCELLENT snack, and I find they help me relax a little.  So long as you have dried them off and put them in a bowl (as opposed to eating them straight out of a jar filled with brine), they are a clean and pleasant smelling snack to have next to your keyboard.  There is a wide variety of stuffed olives you can buy, although I personally enjoy them stuffed with jalapenos or garlic cloves.

One of the few instances that I ignore my “no corn syrup” rule without a second thought is when Frosted Mini-Wheats are involved. I prefer the Blueberry iteration, although they are all pretty darn tasty.  Since they are bite size, they are easy to munch on without requiring a lot of cleanup.  I’m not sure if you could consider them healthy, but they are certainly better for you than potato chips.  If you are looking for a healthy cereal snack, you should take a look at what Kashi has to offer.  Their plain cereals are a bit bland, but they have some real winners in their offerings.

Hummus and baked pita is another tasty, healthy gaming snack.  There is a huge variety of hummus, so take your pick.  While nothing will top homemade hummus, my favorite commercial brand is Tribe Hummus. It’s about as close as you will get to making it yourself, and they have a large selection of flavors. They also offer organic varieties, if you are into that sort of thing.  Fresh veggies like baby carrots and celery also go quite well with hummus, just in case you don’t want to go the pita route.

There are tons of healthy gaming snacks out there…so much so that we couldn’t possibly cover them all.  We will return to healthy snacks in the future, but our next entry in The Healthy Gamer series is going to cover gaming comfortably.