A mosaic of un-voice-healthy foods.

We all have certain routines that we go through to warm up our voices before any recording session. Some good and some that maybe aren’t that healthy. Something that we should all be paying close attention to are the foods that we are putting into bodies before we go into a session. What foods should we not eat before performing?

COLD WATER

Let’s get this one out of the way first. Water is good - at room temperature or warmer. Filling your glass to over flowing with ice cubes and then pouring a thimble full of water does more harm than good. The cold liquid constricts the vocal chords and, from personal experience, gives a squeaking pubescent tonal quality to your voice. Maybe not ideal for that movie trailer you’re voicing.

SALTY SNACKS

The vocal folds in your throat are like finicky tomato plants as they need a lot of water to keep hydrated. Making “duck lips” with a couple of Pringles before you inhale an entire tube of the faux-tato chips is definitely hilarious, but it’s just going to hurt your voice. The salt in the snacks just sucks up all the moisture in the body leaving your voice strained.

SODA

Take the worst aspects of cold liquids and salty snacks and put them in a stylish, easily-grippable 20 ounce bottles and you got soda pop. Unless you’re really weird, like me, then you always drink your soda ice cold constricting your chords. (Full disclosure: I love warm Mountain Dew! It’s thick and hearty.) All the while, you’re enjoying the seemingly refreshing beverage, internally it’s dehydrating you as well. Oh, and then there’s that one time that you accidentally burped real loud into the microphone too. The engineer loved that.

MILK

Great on cereal, excellent in oatmeal and a litmus test for all presidential candidates. Milk, part of a wholesome life. Until you’ve got to record and audio book, then stay far away from the creamy white stuff. Before a voice over session milk turns from a giver of life to a producer of mucus, phlegm and throat bubbles. The fat in the milk then sticks to the saliva in the mouth creating that horrible smacking noise that sounds like Wilford Brimley eating a carrot. Let me tell you, it’s hard to Pro-Tools that out a radio spot.

SPICY FOODS

I know it’s common practice to have a plate of boneless buffalo tenders in a recording studio but I’m going to have to be the wet blanket that ends this tradition. Those spicy foods create acid reflux in the stomach that works it’s way up to the esophagus and literally destroys your vocal chords. Oh, and it does one other thing to your body. Remember that burp that the engineer heard? Let him keep thinking that’s a burp.

CHOCOLATE

I hate to do this, but that sleeve of Rolo’s in your pocket is going to have to wait until after the session. Chocolate, to the voice, is like little, dark, solid milk chunks just waiting to attach it’s fat to your saliva. And we all know that we can’t tolerate that smacking sound in the microphone, no matter how delicious that conflict-free chocolate bar with those little cocoa nibs in it is. Well, Wilford Brimley doesn’t know, I guess…

If anyone else has any other foods, drinks or activities to avoid before a voice over session please leave them in the comments below.