All right, someone out there (and forgive the stereotypical assumption, but I’m thinking it’s one of the lady-folk) has found Aladdin’s lamp, because calorie-free chocolate has arrived! Unfortunately, it comes with this official Candy Addict caution: Granted wishes don’t always take the form you expect them to.
Brainy Harvard professor and inventor David Edwards has recently unveiled Le Whif, a breakthrough creation that allows chocoholics to inhale (through their mouths) chocolate particles (or, let’s call a spade a spade here, powder) so minuscule that they deliciously dust the sides of one’s mouth and tongue without so much as registering on the calorie scale. It’s an intriguing concept that’s kind of hard to imagine in practical form, so my interest was piqued when I was offered the chance to sample this fantasy product.
A few days later, I received a USPS envelope containing some Space Age-y packages and a basic PR product card. No note or instructions or suggestions as to how one might want to approach Le Whif. Fortunately, I was able to find a (surprisingly detailed) how-to guide buried in the FAQs of their website and, along with a carefully heeded (and much appreciated) warning not to inhale too vigorously for fear of coating the inner workings of my respiratory system with chocolate dust, I forayed into the world of no-cal candy.
Unsurprisingly, what this amounts to is chocolate air. In a cute but not especially Earth-friendly plastic tube. Le Whif comes in four flavors: plain chocolate, raspberry chocolate, mint chocolate, and mango chocolate, three of which I got to sample.
Plain Chocolate (or “American Whifâ€)
What can I say? It tastes like chocolate. I guess I expected it to be slightly bitter, like cocoa powder, but it wasn’t. It was good. I daresay it was the most delightful puff of chocolate air I’ve ever had.
Mint Chocolate (or “English Whifâ€)
Mmm, refreshing. A typical mint/chocolate experience. Felt like a little snow flurry in my mouth. I’m not sure if this combo is endemic to Britain but, truth be told, it conjured up stronger images of Switzerland for me.
Mango Chocolate (or “Caribbean Whifâ€)
Again, good flavor here. It wasn’t outright mango-licious but, sure, it felt a little Island-y.
Once I got the hang of it, the Le Whif contraption was relatively easy to master. They say that it contains approximately four chocolate puffs, but I found two emptied it pretty sufficiently. And while they suggest that, between puffs, you can close Le Whif and store it in your pocket, I think I’d likely want to slap anyone who felt the need to save their second puff “for later.â€
Overall, I was underwhelmed by Le Whif. It’s an exemplary replacement for air, less so for candy. The approximately three seconds of excitement I got from it hardly seem worth the price (over $2 per canister and currently only available through their website), though it seems tailor-made for extreme dieters and those having trouble quitting smoking because they just miss the inhaling part too damn much. So that’s my expert opinion, which I will couple with this official Candy Addict plea: Someone please get that genie back in its bottle before it unceremoniously bastardizes other good things like cheesecake, Christmas, and sex.
And let’s face it, who wants to smell sex?…well, maybe there are the occasional few.
June 19th, 2009 at 9:21 amThe warning is realistic, after all, more often than not what you want is not entirely what you get, but, being a chocoholic, I know for a fact – smelling chocolate will make me want to eat it.
Le Whif = good intention with a creative approach, not the best solution to a craving. Nuh uh.
2 Puffs??!! Outrageous! You need at least 20 good puffs to make this worth the novelty.
Thank goodness it isn’t Le Xmas or Le Chezcak or Le Sensual… those only lasting a couple of seconds would suck bigtime.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:13 pmWow $1 a puff. Rip off, but I’ll buy the mint one and the normal one, they seem interesting :P
June 20th, 2009 at 4:19 amEr.. seems kind of gimicky.
June 21st, 2009 at 6:02 amCalorie free?! Sounds like a dream.
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:37 amBut sadly I have respiratory issues so no chocolate air for me.
I think “It’s an exemplary replacement for air” may be the best piece of writing I’ve read in some time. This product is so ridiculous I almost can’t bear it, but then again, I don’t believe calories are the devil, so I’m probably not the target audience.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:32 amIf this stuff works like the tobacco inhaler called smokescents, they’ll be a huge success. They are a bit pricey compared to smokescents which only cost about $10 and they last for more than a month and help me when I can’t light one up. You can see more just Google smokescents.
March 12th, 2010 at 12:37 pmjust in case anyone cares, the “not too earth friendly plastic tube” is actually biodegradable. but it’s not important, the product still seems bad.
June 15th, 2011 at 6:56 pm