Food is often eaten for breakfast, dinner and tea; food scientists will tell you that food is good for you. However, these claims have never been substantiated.

Fact

It’s a fact that the time spent at the dining table rather than the poker table may cost you dearly.

Studies have shown that many recreational poker players will spend one and a half hours every day eating. That equates to forty two hours of monthly munching.

Shovelling down their gullets

Over an average lifetime, those barmy recreational poker players will miss five thousand hours of table time preferring to shovel a whooping, 45,000 pounds of food down their gullets.

Poker-Cartoons.com examined the diets of professional online poker players and found some startling differences.

Gus Hansen

If Gus Hansen looks like he hasn’t eaten a decent meal for a week; the chances are he hasn’t. Gus’s strictly regulated eating pattern allows him just four square meals over a six month cycle. Instead he grazes on dry muesli and bean sprouts. “I eat food that doesn’t dirty my fingers” Gus told us, “that way it keeps my keyboard clean.” Wow all that poker and yet he still has time to play the piano.

Toilet breaks

That’s not all; Gus went on the reveal that the regime assigns toilet breaks months in advance, so he can enjoy 16 hours of continuous table time, without ‘splashing the pot.’ Time enough for even the largest multi-table tournaments.

Artists impression of how a woman eating a banana may look

One woman who did not want to be identified said, “I never eat when playing and as a pro' I often pull a double shift. The local pizza house is on speed dial, as the sun goes down I often have a 12 inch 'Hot Italian Sausage' between my lips.”

Peanut and melons

Clonnie Gowen was thought to be on a peanut and melon diet, the peanuts haven’t worked but the melons…