Breathable chocolate.

Excuse me? Meaning – sampling the aroma of the chocolate, as your mouth waters, while waiting for the actual creamy chocolate to meet your tongue and hit your taste buds?

No, I mean, inhaling chocolate dust, and that’s all folks. It’s Le Whif – a lipstick-sized, biodegradable inhaler filled with barely-one-calorie chocolate particles.

Where did this come from?
David Edwards, a professor of biomedical engineering at Harvard University, came up with the idea of “eating by breathing” while opening the Foodlab at Le Laboratoire, an experimental design space in Paris. There he developed Le Whif.

Dr. Edwards explains the effect, “A little bit of powder on the taste buds gives you all the flavor of a lot of chocolate…” He notes that when eating chocolate, the amount that stimulates your taste buds is actually very small.

For years, the molecular guys have been claiming that a large portion of what we perceive as taste is actually smell anyway.

Inhaling over chewing?
Ok, so I know it’s nearly calorie free, but really why bother? Wouldn’t you prefer the texture and the taste? And doesn’t the aroma of something usually make you crave it more, not less? I don’t want to nix the product without having tried it, but, come on, a chocolate lover is not going to settle for spores.

For me, if I’m going to take the time, I’m going for the real thing. Any chocolate lovers care to weigh in?

Le Whif comes in three whiffable flavors: pure deep organic chocolate, raspberry + sweet chocolate and mint + sweet chocolate. And here’s something else to chew on – or not – Le Whif will soon offer coffee, sans cup. For the truly curious, inhalers may be purchased online through the Le Whif website. A minimum order of three Le Whifs goes for 1.80 Euros per stick (that’s nearly $2.50 each at the current exchange rate.)

Photo: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times