Primal Nerddom. What can I eat at LAN parties? page

[B. Knight]

This is a huge issue for me. I'm a gigantic nerd. I love going to LAN parties, and hosting them. But the customary tradition of LAN parties is staying up all night, ingesting tons of junk food and candy, and drinking gallons of energy drinks. I need help with primal junk food. The overwhelming urge to eat junk food when I'm in that environment is unbearable, and I always jump off the wagon head first.

So far all I've been able to think of is hot n' spicy fried pork skins and beef jerky. As for energy drinks, I try to only drink water, but some times the allure is too great. Maybe I should try black iced coffee.

So, back to my question. What can I eat at LAN parties? (for those non-nerds, LAN stands for Local Area Network. We all take our gaming computers and set them up in the same location, usually a basement, and stay up all night playing games. It's great fun, I assure you. And super cool. )

[Chaohinon]

For liquid, I would take a big water bottle with a couple bags of green tea, herbal tea, mint, yerba mate and lemon/lime chunks, or something, and keep refilling it with ice & water.

[Waskydiver]

Buffalo wings come to mind... Throw a bunch of wings on the BBQ, then drench them in a mixture of Frank's red hot and butter. Dipped in blue cheese optional.

Only problem is that they would not be too keyboard friendly.

Another suggestion is to stick to very strict, super low carbs, like a full 5 days before the party. I'm talking meat and eggs.

Then bring a bunch of strawberries, and Blueberries, and even some Pineapple. Wash it down with some Crystal Light, maybe. And have some cheese and pepperoni on hand. The black coffee works too... Espeically if you deny yourself caffine for a week.

After 5 days of being super low carbs, those berries are going to be as rich and sweet as cake, cookies and ice cream. You will feel like you have gone hog wild... And it is a splurge. But it's a lot more healthy than eating a bunch of pizza and cookies and coke all night.

[Bishop]

If you are not opposed to one night of artificial sweetener, the sugar free energy drinks aren't bad. Otherwise I would bring a bottle if fresh Ginger and lemon slices and do water. You could eat some salted nuts.

In reality, I would probably throw my hands up and pound back Cherry Coke Zero all night.

My husband prefers tea at those types of events.

[ShannonCC]

My dh does old school table top gaming. He shows up with his own food. At first the other gamers were ordering pizza every night but they asked him about his food and he told them about the angioplasty, the stents and the diabetes. He's about 10 years older than the other guys and I think they saw their mortality when they looked at him, lol! The last few gaming sessions the other guys brought their own food instead of ordering in. Cracks me up

But anyway, salt free nuts (he's got high blood pressure - though it's going down with primal eating!) are what he mostly noshes on. Also crunchy veggies like carrots, celery and sugar snap peas. They game for about 6 hours so he also brings a salad but that won't work well for computer gaming.

Oh, and I can't wean him off the Cherry Coke Zero so he brings that to drink when the other guys are drinking real coke.

My husband doesn't like them, but hard boiled eggs are a good finger food too. And like was already said - fruit for the sweet stuff. Strawberries are really finger friendly (unless they are overly ripe then you'll get your keyboard messy). And beef jerky is a fantastic idea, if you can find a brand without sugar in it. Mmmmmm, jerky

[naiadknight]

Food:
Pork rinds
beef jerky
craisins
fruit
chocolate
Drink:
ginger green tea
iced coffee
semi-Primal and all Nerd: sugarfree Bawls

[lizch]

I had to ask my 18 year old what this was all about. I said to him "I can't believe they really mean Local Area Network, so I'm obviously behind on acronyms" and he replied "Oh, they DO mean that..." and proceeded to show me photos of the big LAN parties.

20 years ago, I worked on LAN Manager 2.0 at Microsoft. Never in a million years dreamed anyone could make a party out of it!!

[IcarianVX]

Biotest Spike is a pretty good, sugar free energy drink. And it actually fucking works too, which is an anomaly in the "energy" drink arena.
I use them for lifting days (and the occasional LAN party) when I am draggin' ass.

As for food, beef jerky and nuts are really the only thing I need/want during a LAN party anyway. Sometimes I will *splurge* and eat some plain tortilla chips or something. I just don't want to have breasts like those Dorito eatin', Mt. Dew swillin' guys that I have seen at some of the parties. Call me fickle.

[lil_earthmomma]

Cans of 100% coconut water for an energy treat.

Cheese and sliced cured sausage or meats (bonus points if you can get locally cured products. Look for a small deli in your area.)
Nuts
Pork rinds and dip. Make the dip. There are a million dips out there, including spinach dip, spicy jalapeno dip, carmalized onion dip...

For candy, maple glazed pecans, coconut oil fudge, or Batty's blueberry butter balls, and of course fresh fruit. Bananas are my candy.

[KittyCanuck]

Aaaand this is the thread that finally made me join this forum! Proof that nerdy people like me can do this and still do all the fun "normal" things in our lives. ^_^