The Sweet Treat Nancy Pelosi Eats For Breakfast

We may never know what President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi talk about when they see each other behind closed doors, but some of us might well wonder if they've ever talked about ice cream — chocolate ice cream to be specific — since the president has made no secret of the fact that he's never met an ice cream he didn't like and the Speaker is open about her "mad" obsession with chocolate. 

Pelosi has even confessed to something the President has yet to admit: That from time to time, she'll even have chocolate ice cream for breakfast. In a recent episode of the "River Cafe Table 4" podcast on iHeartRadio, the Speaker said: "It's not an urban myth. It's convenient, it's right there, it has a long shelf life, you don't have to worry about it. I have it for breakfast. It's a great way to start the day." But before (nutrition) heads start turning, Pelosi clarified, "I don't have it every day, but I have it often." 

Her love affair with chocolate ice cream is such that she's even admitted to eating pints of Ben and Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk during the "brief" period she made use of a stationery bike which had been gifted to her by her husband.

Nancy Pelosi didn't always have ice cream for breakfast

Pelosi says chocolate ice cream hasn't always been her breakfast of choice. Before that, it was her nighttime snack of choice. But as she got older, she discovered having her favorite treat too late into the night actually kept her up. The Speaker recalls a time she ate chocolate ice cream before falling asleep, only to wake up at three in the morning buzzing from a sugar high. As she told the "River Cafe Table 4" podcast, "The later the chocolate, the less sleep I have."

This could all come down to the fact that Pelosi's desired chocolate "got darker and darker." And, as SFGate points out, the darker the chocolate, the more the caffeine. And even though dark chocolate still has less caffeine than a cup of coffee, an ounce of dark chocolate does have about 25 milligrams of caffeine. For reference, a shot of espresso has nearly three times more, or about 63 milligrams, so a three-ounce serving could have had the same effect as a demitasse of strong black coffee.

But chocolate isn't just important to Pelosi, it could well be critical for us too, and in a way we could never imagine. After the House passed the landmark Affordable Care Act in 2010 and Pelosi was asked how she managed to survive a year of negotiations to make the bill happen, her response was: "Chocolate. Very, very dark chocolate."