April 21, 2009 Eating chocolate is one of those pleasure experiences many of us can’t live without, and for those serious choc addicts who think they've done it all, there could yet be a new frontier - chocolate that you inhale. Created by a professor at Harvard University with help from art and science college students, Le Whif began as a culinary art experiment which culminated into a marketed product that’s set for a world tour - it’s a chocolate inhaler shaped like a tube of lipstick that is breathed in for a mouth full of chocolate, with a tiny fraction of the calories. Scoffing is replaced by whiffing.
David A. Edwards, Professor of the Practice of Biomedical Engineering Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences (what that has to with chocolate, we may never know) is the lead creator of Le Whif. “Over the centuries we've been eating smaller and smaller quantities at shorter and shorter intervals," says Edwards. "It seemed to us that eating was tending toward breathing, so, with a mix of culinary art and aerosol science, we've helped move eating habits to their logical conclusion. We call it whiffing.” The Professor is among many other things, the President and Chief Scientific Officer of Advanced Inhalation Research, and is also at work on needle-free delivery of childhood vaccines. It's not too much of a stretch to assume that he’s also a lover of chocolate.
The Le Whif team believe that Le Whif has “rediscovered the act of eating.” The process shouldn't be confused with smelling the chocolate - the mouth is used to inhale a fine chocolate powder which enters your mouth and remains there. It’s been pointed out that the joy of chocolate is in eating it; otherwise people would have been sniffing the stuff instead, or possibly going in for a dose of cocoa powder. However, the Le Whif team believe this is “a great way to curb your appetite” and say that “chocolate is only the beginning” - even envisioning a future where we might be inhaling our food three times a day.
In the 200 milligrams of fine chocolate powder contained in Le Whif there is only one calorie. Having almost zero calories, they believe it could also be used as a dieting tool.
According to the company, the particles of chocolate in Le Whif cannot enter the lungs because they are much larger than 10 microns in size, so they cannot enter your lungs.
On sale from April 29, the Le Whif roll-out begins with a launch party in Paris followed by a world tour from Paris, to Chicago, Hong Kong and finishing up in Tokyo.
Le Whif comes in four flavors: mint chocolate, raspberry chocolate, mango chocolate, and plain chocolate. Available online from LeLabo Shop located in France for €9.95 or USD$12.85 for a pack of six.
Jamilah Le