Chocolate, Not Coffee

Into the gritty night you go, sneering at the need for rest before further flight. But rather than reheated FBO coffee in your hand, you hold … a chocolate bar?

jwanwest

Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 08:00 AM ET

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Macro chocolate pieces isolated against a white background

Key Takeaways:

A sleep-deprived pilot found high-cocoa chocolate to be a more effective stimulant than coffee for maintaining alertness during flights.
Unlike coffee's short-lived buzz, chocolate provided a slower onset but several hours of mental clarity without jitters or biological urgencies, ideal for cramped cockpits.
The sustained stimulant effect comes from a combination of caffeine and significant amounts of theobromine found in high-cocoa solids, with potency varying by the chocolate's percentage.
While a useful pick-me-up, high-cocoa chocolate is not a substitute for adequate sleep, which remains paramount for safety in critical roles like aviation.

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Back in the days when I had two children under the age of two, I was writing full-time plus instructing part-time. This left me getting as much sleep as the crew of Apollo 13 when they rounded the dark side of the moon.

Someone willing to look an IMSAFE checklist in the eye would have given up the flying jobs. But I couldn’t. Instead, I did what any young, headstrong and foolish pilot would do: I abused caffeine.