Happy Easter!
If you’re anything like me, you’ll have been trying your best not to tuck into your Easter eggs early. Normally for big holidays I just send a well wishing email to all my subscribers, but a few people had commented to me that they think chocolate is bad for your voice.
But is chocolate bad for your voice?
As in all things, the real answer is “it depends“. There are certainly worse things to eat/drink for good singing, e.g. copious amounts of alcohol, anything dry and sticky like peanut butter/porridge, or anything that might give you reflux like spicy foods/curry.
Some people will know that when they eat chocolate, they notice their voice tends to feel mucous-y and gunky. Maybe not to an extreme degree, but enough that when trying to sing the gunk seems to get in the way.
For those people, the working assumption I’ve come to adopt with clients and singers who complain about this is that they may have a very mild lactose intolerance. Darker chocolate with less/no dairy component is a helpful way to sidestep/test this theory. Though some people do also react badly to high sugar or additives in certain chocolate, that seems to be a less common complaint.
For those who feel a bit more gunky after eating chocolate, they may well also find this to be the case after drinking tea/coffee with milk in. That plus caffeine can both dry out the throat, and make it feel gunkier than normal.
In short, I personally think most people are not that badly affected by eating chocolate before singing. If anything, the feel good endorphins can help with further enjoying the act of singing. So if you enjoy it, don’t worry about it.
When should I avoid chocolate/something else?
Try not to overthink it. Enjoy what you like, and if you start to notice something gives you grief (vocally) then try cutting it out before singing. It doesn’t matter how minorly it bothers you, feel free to cut it out if it gets in the way – singing is difficult enough without having to worry about those things.
On the other hand, perhaps some things have a noticeable effect, yet the effect doesn’t bother you that much – it’s entirely down to you to gauge what affects you and whether it’s a problem.
When it comes to dairy, I could personally drink a pint of milk before singing and not notice any ill-effects. But there are other foods that bother me. I REALLY don’t like how my throat feels after eating bananas. This might seem bizarre, but it really bothers me. I find it really negatively affects my ability to focus and control my voice, so I cut them out. Spicy foods can sometimes trigger hiccups, so they too need to stay out.
The take-home message today though, is that you should enjoy any Easter eggs you’ve received guilt-free… at least from the perspective of singing!