Spritz On Some Flavor!

Now that everything from a tan to pantyhose comes in a spray form, it's little wonder someone has found a way to put liquid pork in a can.

Well, almost. Smoked bacon, as well as chocolate fudge, strawberry shortcake, ranch and banana split are among the flavors featured in a new line of spritz-on food toppings. The "flavor sprays" are designed to simulate the taste of dieters' favorite foods while eliminating the guilt of eating them -- each contains no fat, calories, carbohydrates or cholesterol.

"(Spray-on) birthday-cake is going to be a home run.", predicts Sean Pomper, operations director for Flavor Spray Diet. "You actually taste the vanilla cake with the chocolate filling inside and the sprinkles and the cream on top."

The 18 unlikely sprays are the brainchild of celebrity chef David Burke, a New York culinarian noted for his research and new product development.

New York Post food critic Cynthia Kilian wrote that the spray-on bacon's "flavor charade (works) surprisingly well on scrambled eggs." The hot and sour spray didn't fare as well, causing a "potent sting of heat accompanied by a musty tang." Root beer float was dubbed "a clear winner."

Each can contains a liquid extract made up of water, salts, emulsifiers and natural and artificial flavors, with Splenda used as a sweetener in the "dessert" sprays. A 60ml supply will cost Canadians about $7.00, plus shipping, and is said to last six months (flavorspraydiet.com).

Pomper recently shipped two cases of product to a Maryland hospital that's now using Burke's dessert sprays on patients with dysphagia, a condition characterized by difficulties swallowing. "The patients are loving it," Pomper reports. "They're on a feeding tube but they're actually getting a hit of strawberry shortcake, marshmallow, chocolate, root beer.... tastes they haven't had in their mouths for years.

Krystyna Sieciechowicz, a University of Toronto food anthropologist, likens the sprays to a harbinger of virtual food.

"When we're staring to extract all these ingredients, how far are we from saying we'll have a pill and we'll have a spray that gives you a whiff of onions?" she muses. "It may be 100 or 200 years off, but I think that's what we're preparing ourselves for -- food that's a mere remembrance of what the original was."

Author: Susan Rutter -- Publisher, Nutritionist, and Instructor who assists patients and the public make healthy choices and changes in their lives.

Web Site: Healthy YOUbbies.
http://www.geocities.com/healthyoubbies/