As a general rule, food and video games are about as compatible as texting and driving (hint: they’re not). You might be able to get away with cold pizza with a controller in hand, but never stuff your pie-hole with this messiness during play:
5. Fried chicken
Unless you want to lose your game’or worse, your TV by a flying Wii remote’a firm grip on the controller is a must. That said, fried chicken, the greasiest of all finger foods, should be avoided at all times. As a Southerner, I like a delicious drumstick as much as the next guy. But you need professional help if you can’t stay away from the colonel’s original recipe for at least a couple of hours.
4. Glazed doughnuts
Mmmm. Doughnuts. Everybody loves doughnuts. Especially glazed ones. But not only will you sacrifice sure gaming footing while stuffing your face with the sticky goodness found on the latter, you’ll probably clog important bits and pieces on your controller with sugar syrup. Once that happens, kiss your controller goodbye, you slob.
3. Crab legs
The only thing worse than grease while playing video games is butter. And you can’t eat crab legs without liquefied butter, unless you happen to be a fish. Spilling a tiny cup of oiled fat on the sofa is bad enough. But a complete inability to clutch a controller due to buttery hands makes “the deadliest catch” a definite no-no while gaming. Plus, they’re too much work!
2. Rack of ribs
And you thought glazed doughnuts were bad. Although succulent, barbecue ribs are so messy, there should be warning labels on both game cases and take-out boxes not to mix the two. Your fatty self might be able to sneak by with a dry rub, but wet ribs should definitely be verboten in gaming rooms everywhere’by law if necessary. (See also: Buffalo wings)
1. Cheetos
After asking friends and fellow critics to name the No. 1 food to avoid while gaming, the overwhelming majority said Cheetos. Doritos are bad, but Cheetos are worse, because layers of cheese pile on fingers coat over coat, getting progressively gunkier the longer you eat. They’re certainly tasty, but Cheetos muck up controllers like nobody’s business. The worst gaming food of all time.
Originally published to Smooth Harold
After my 3-year-old started bringing friends over to play, I have to lay down the law even firmer than before: no playing without washing hands first! If I do it to my wife, you better believe I'm gonna do it to the neighborhood kids!
cheetos suck
Who even eats crab legs at home, anyway?
I admit, my Classic Controller thumb sticks have a slightly orange tinge to them.
I think any residual juice from the crab meat would offer a smelly problem over time as well as the butter.
Now that my think about it, my little sisters had problems getting their chocolatey fingers all over my NES controllers too. Had to clean those a lot.
Number one is so true. And I'm ashamed to admit that I once ate fried chicken while playing Metroid Prime in the GameCube days.
I can't imagine needing to eat crab legs while playing video games, but whatever.
Anybody played the chocobo dungoen game on wii? That game can be only played with the wii remote, PERFECT! for snacking 😀 played with my left hand and ate all kinds of things including pizza with the my right hand!
This list also applies well to keyboards. My laptop is almost unusable now
thanks to my daughter getting her grubby, cheeto, chocolate, candy coated fingers all over the keys whenever she goes on her build-a-bear site.
My son's pretty good at not playing the Wii with dirty hands, but my daughter can be told a gazillion times to wash her hands first, or to not eat while using the computer, and still she manages to find a way to get the keys stickified. You'd think that after losing her computer privileges so often that she would learn, but nope, they keys continue to get coated.
Fun article by the way.
You can't go wrong with Mike 'n' Ikes.
Hey Doc,
I don't know about that. You ever try to get a squished Mike N Ike out of a keyboard that's wedged between the Tab key and the Caps Lock key?
Johni sucks
Nevermind the fact that unless you are playing a slow-paced game like a TBS or RPG, you probably can't manage to eat and play at the same time without many pauses.
That's why my snack of choice is Raisinets. Although being chocolaty goodness, they don't stain your hands (unless they've been sitting in direct heat).