What Would Your Favourite Video Game Character’s Diet Look Like?
Video game characters often defy the laws of the physical world, performing stunts that would leave any athlete breathless. But what do they eat to power all those death-defying stunts?
The experts at Mobile Premier League (MPL), a popular gaming platform offering a variety of games across categories, looked into what famous video game characters like Master Chief and Sonic The Hedgehog eat in-game, and how many calories their activities would burn in the real world. They share their insights here.
Sonic The Hedgehog
Sonic, the fastest (and only) blue hedgehog in the world, is obsessed with chilli dogs. That’s a pretty odd diet for your average hedgehog, as they’re more likely to eat small invertebrates like beetles, worms, and caterpillars. However, considering Sonic can run at the speed of sound, he’s anything but ordinary.
The average healthy human burns around 80 calories per mile when running. The speed of sound is 750 miles per hour, so Sonic would burn a staggering 60,000 calories if he ran for an hour.
“Your average chilli dog contains about 320 calories, so Sonic would have to eat nearly 200 dogs just to get back all the calories he burned,” says MPL. “If he wants a healthier diet to replenish that energy, he should focus on foods like rice, nuts, quinoa, salmon, and oats.”
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider
Svelte adventurer Lara Croft isn’t shown eating a lot in the Tomb Raider games. According to fans, she eats a hundred chocolate bars in one sitting in one game, drinks a can of Coke in another, and has a fridge full of meat. Just meat. Oh, and according to her original character bio, her favourite food is beans on toast.
“Not a very healthy diet, if you ask us!” says MPL. “We think the diet designed for Alicia Vikander, who played Lara in the most recent Tomb Raider movie, better represents what someone as active as Lara should eat. Alicia’s diet coach, Magnus Lygdback, revealed on his blog that he designed a keto diet for her that included foods like avocados, nuts, fish, and olive oil.
“The focus was on high amounts of fat and protein and low carbs, which fueled Alicia’s active shooting schedule while keeping her in a calorie deficit.”
Master Chief
What does a superhuman supersoldier eat while saving the galaxy from evil aliens? John-117, better known as Master Chief, is mechanically and biologically engineered to be taller, stronger, and faster than an average human and spends most of his time doing taxing physical activity. Thus, his caloric requirements must be much higher than even those of a normal human soldier. And yet, much like Lara Croft, we never see him eat.
“However, we do see several MREs scattered around at various points in-game,” says MPL. “MREs, short for ‘Meal, Ready to Eat,’ are vacuum-packed ready meals used by the military in real life to feed soldiers in situations where setting up normal cooking facilities is impractical. They often contain a pre-packaged main meal, instant coffee, and protein bars. Their real-world equivalents are famously nasty to eat, but you can’t be choosy when fighting off aliens and rogue AI!”
The developers have also said Master Chief’s famous Mjolnir armour can dispense food and water between fights, and that the suit ‘repurposes’ sweat and… other waste fluids as water for Chief to drink. Yum.
Link
Link’s culinary habits have developed over the years. After eating nothing but fairies and drinking nothing but milk in earlier games, Breath of the Wild introduced a cooking system to the series. This was carried through into the latest instalment in the Legend of Zelda franchise, Tears of the Kingdom, which has 228 recipes for Link to cook.
“From seafood paella and spicy pepper steak to Hylian tomato pizza and apple pie, Link can become quite an accomplished cook over the course of the game,” says MPL. “Given all the running, climbing, and fighting he does, Link could be burning as many as 3,000 calories per day. Foods like steak, seafood, and vegetable curry are great options for packing on healthy calories. The fruit pies and carrot cake recipes he also has in his cookbook… not so much.”
A spokesperson for Mobile Premier League (MPL) commented:
“Fictional video game heroes like Lara Croft, Master Chief, and Link exemplify perseverance, agility, and strength, and can be aspirational figures for gamers on a fitness journey. The gamification of fitness can help people who struggle with traditional exercise routines to become more active, making fitness more fun by making it more like a video game.
“Even minor increases in physical activity, such as playing motion-based games like VR or Wii games, can substantially improve physical health. However, while active video games can reduce sedentary behaviour, they should complement, rather than replace, regular exercise.
“Let the resilience and adventurous spirit of these iconic characters inspire you to pursue your own fitness journeys, but don’t exist on a diet of a hundred chocolate bars and chilli dogs. Unlike Lara and Sonic, that won’t do your health any good!”