Energy drinks for the streaking Heat

Today’s meal should give the Miami Heat a shot of energy. It also comes with a calorie count and fire.

Mar 27, 2013, 5:44 PM UTC

The Heat are winning a lot of basketball games in a row. If you don’t know this, you are a very lucky person because you have never watched ESPN before. The Worldwide Leader has decided to stuff every spare moment in Sportscenter with repetitive five minute montages of each win in the streak, and now they send out mobile alerts every time the Heat extend it. You cannot escape it. There is nothing you can do to stop it. The only way to be free is for the Heat to break the record, or for everyone on the team to simultaneously fall ill with food poisoning.

Enter Spillyfood.

Today I’ll be making an energy drink for the Heat. It’s not just any energy drink. It’s a morning breakfast blend. If you’ve watched any sort of television the last few weeks, you’ve likely seen that Mountain Dew is now marketing a breakfast energy drink called Kickstart. There’s some nonsense about fruit juice tossed in there to make it breakfasty but it’s basically red Power Faygo. I’ve had it. It’s okay, I guess, I’d rank it somewhere between Sunny Delight and Purple Stuff in my fridge. But it could be better. Energy is measured in calories, right? Sure! Kickstart has 80 calories. That’s not that many. Let’s beef that up a little (not with beef) (yet).

STEP 1) Where Kickstart fails is that it’s not really a morning drink. Sure it’s marketed that way, but it’s lacking your basic breakfast foods. We’ll begin with some traditional ingredients to correct this right away. Plug in that blender!

STEP 2) Eggs and bacon. Keep in mind you could get real bacon, but then you’d have to...cook it in a skillet or somesuch. And while I do love bonus bacon grease in my morning blends, it might fatten up the drink some. This is for athletes!

Calories: Bacon: 120, Eggs: 180 - TOTAL: 300

STEP 3) Pile those in the blender. Don’t forget to add in some Tang to simulate orange juice! Next up, we’ll add some french toast. I was going to go with the waffle here, but Eggos tend to blend unevenly and get caught in the blades. Break up the french toast sticks to make it easier to mix. Grind it all into a paste.

Calories: 110 (4 sticks) - TOTAL: 410

STEP 4) Remember those cereal ads that would say “Part of this complete breakfast”? Who would actually eat that entire breakfast? I didn’t even use a bowl. I’d just slice the box down the middle of the front, pull open each side like I’m doing heart surgery, and pour half a gallon of milk straight into the sliced bag. Judge me if you must, but those were treasured Saturday mornings. We need cereal.

Oh look! It’s John Cena on the box with Bam Bam. I haven’t watched wrestling since Voodoo Guy made Fella With Bright Facepaint vomit all over the place in the early 90s. Anyway, I think John Cena is the guy in all the USA WWE ads who keeps trying to wash his face with his hand but can’t quite touch it. Pour in about a cup of Pebbles.

Calories: 147 - TOTAL: 557

STEP 5) Lastly for breakfast, we will use the food of lazy slobs the nation over: Pop Tarts. It’s all the fun of toast with all the nutrition of cardboard! Break one up into your stew and keep going.

Calories: 200 - TOTAL: 757

STEP 6) Now, let’s move on to the actual Energy portion of our drink. The goal here is to thin out the chunky breakfast mortar we have above into a delicious morning beverage. Start with two stalwarts of liquid stimulation:

Pour them directly into the blender. I used about half of each (we have to leave room for all the other stuff!).

Calories: Red Bull (1/2 can): 60, Frappuccino: 100 - TOTAL: 917

STEP 7) We really aren’t gaining ground on the energy front - we need something concentrated to tip the scales. Something that’s nothing more than concentrated anxiety attack in a bottle. Something that glows green. Mio fits that bill. Sure, it MAY say “Do not mix with caffeinated beverages”, but that’s just like saying “Be careful, you probably can’t handle that much awesome all at once”

The calories here are negligible. Let’s go with three. TOTAL: 920

STEP 8) Our stimulant per ounce has gotten a huge boost, but we’re still not quite there yet. Let’s try something a bit more traditional and less Xtreme Bloo.

It’s a nice touch to put on the caffeine indicator there. Our drink is probably at a seventeen by now. In any case, I’m not really a tea drinker but apparently it comes in little single serving packs on a string. They make the bags pretty difficult to open so I just tossed the whole thing in. We probably needed fiber. And ink.

Once again, we’re striking out on calories. Zero here. I half paid attention in high school science classes so I know calories are important for energy. Let’s rectify that in the next step.

TOTAL: STILL 920.

STEP 9) I can’t think of a better way to get energy than this:

Pour 2 cups of sugar into the bowl. Eat this, Mountain Dew.

96 teaspoons of sugar: 1440 calories - TOTAL: 2360

STEP 10) That should do it. That’s a day’s worth of calories in one delicious paste! Why, you’d never need to eat again after a swig of this. You probably couldn’t eat again if you tried, to be honest. Also you’d have diabetes in twenty minutes.

But can this concoction help the Heat win games? I think we’re missing one very last, crucial ingredient. We need something to really speak to the players, something they can identify with. Let’s set it on fire.

Apologies for the crappy cell phone pictures from here on out. I was really excited to light things on fire for the internet. Splash a bit of rum on top of the energy drink. If you’ve made it right, the rum shouldn’t sink in, but float on top. Of course it will, because everything under it is almost a solid at this point. Regardless, pour it on, turn out the lights, and take a step back.