If you’re like us, spending the Super Bowl chomping on chicken wings, tossing back brewskies and noshing on nachos is much more entertaining than watching the actual game.

Of course, to go along with our eating extravaganza—and Madonna’s half-time show—we do tune in to the commercials, and naturally there are plenty of TV food ads hoping to score major touchdowns with consumers.

PBS reports that an editor for the blog So Good estimates that if you tried to eat every food item advertised during the 2011 championship football game, you’d have been penalized with calories totaling a whopping 30 pounds—and that’s down from 60 pounds’ worth of food and drink shown during the 2010 game.

Want to avoid any subliminal, or just plain overt, food messaging on Sunday? Try waiting until the second quarter. According to PBS, 53 percent of food and drink commercials were shown during the Super Bowl’s first quarter last year.

Hey, just think: Spending that first quarter piling your plate with chips, guac and fried cheese could actually be a calorie deterrent in the long run. Now that’s a diet strategy we could live with.

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