Le Whif: Calorie Free Chocolates and Breathable Coffee

Finally, those Harvard professors have put their brains to a worthwhile invention: calorie-free chocolate! David Edwards, a Harvard professor with ArtScienceLabs, has created Le Whif, an organic recipe chocolate powder sold in biodegradable dispensers shaped like small tubes of lipstick. Chocolate lovers simply breathe the chocolate powder into their mouth to savor a quick snack or after dinner-treat - all for less than one calorie per serving.

The science behind Le Whiff has created tiny food particles small enough to be picked up by your air stream and deposited on your taste buds, but too large to be literally inhaled into your lungs. Edwards has been researching aerosol science with food particles for over 10 years and did market research on his Le Whiff product for the last year.

Chocolate puffers can get up to eight whiffs so the experience may be prolonged. Fore example, spread the puffs out over a cup of coffee or take a puff every couple of hours. Edwards tried to keep his new design easy to open with one hand for busy travelors and multi-taskers.

Le Whif is available in three flavors: pure chocolate (rich, organic chocolate), raspberry chocolate (the tang of raspberry blended with the sweet organic chocolate) or mint chocolate.

The breathable chocolate hit the snack market last year, but the new biodegradable design was released January 29, 2010 at Le LaboShop in Paris and will begin to appear in stores through France. By the end of February 2010, Le Whiff will be introduced to the international market.

Individual tubes are sold for 1.80 Euro (about $2.50). Combo 3-packs with all the flavors or larger combo packs with 18 single-serving tubes are also available. If you want to try Le Whiff before it hits American stores, you can purchase it online at LeWhif.com.

With the success of Edwards' breathable chocolate, his company took the science and applied it to another world-wide addiction: coffee. Le Whif Coffee is a plus for busy coffee drinkers - the breathable designs prevents scalding tongue burns and spills. Simply keep your handy breathable coffee tubes in your suit pocket or purse, pull out on the way to work and inhale as much caffeine as you would in a cup of espresso (without needed a bathroom break later). Le Whif Coffee will be released March 11, 2010, following the same release line as the chocolate version hitting Paris first and then spreading internationally.

Edwards isn't the only researcher concentrating on breathable food technologies, though the field remains a European-led movement. Other studies have shown that simply breathing fresh-brewed coffee allows one to gain important antioxidants. Chefs often report not feeling hungry after hours of breathing the succulent aromas of their own cooking. The nose actually smells by inhaling small particles of whatever the body is around. The act of "smelling" chocolate, by definition, means the person is inhaling those particles.

Catalonian inventor Marti Guixe has been studying the effect of breathing particles and gaining tiny amounts of minerals and vitamins with his Pharma-Food. Guixe began trying to create a "dust-meal." His Pharma-Food machine (an appliance that puffs out the dust-meal like an aerosol can) connects with Microsoft Excel to set the desired amounts of vitamins and minerals and proteins needed. Guixe's research is now exploring how to save "programs" on the computer, like virtual recipes, in documents which can be emailed, "like MP3s." In other words, I could email my mom a new recipe. She can hook up her Pharma-food emitter and breathe in my culinary aerosol creation.

Guixes envisions traditional restaurants morphing into "Pharma-bars" where people gather to talk with their Pharma-food emitters. They can inhale any nutrients, vitamins and proteins their body needs in any desired flavor.