Spray-on bacon?

Spray-on bacon: no calories, no crunch.
[Story below found here.]

Now that everything from a tan to pantyhose comes in 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 flavours featured in a new line of spritz-on food toppings. The "flavour sprays" are designed to simulate the taste of dieters' favourite 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 "flavour 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 flavours, with Splenda used as a sweetener in the "dessert" sprays. A 60 mL supply will cost Canadians about $7, 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."

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Celebrity chef David Burke is obviously on some kind of drug. And not something good, like Vicodin. This is just the sort of thing that is wrong with American culture. I appreciate the applications for dysphagia, but COME ON. Virtual Food? This is obviously an extrapolation of what is truly wrong with the concept of fat free cake. Diet cake is *clearly* an abomination against God and Humankind. Cake should be made with whole eggs, butter, cream, and, preferably, either chocolate or almonds. Or both. Applesauce substituting for butter just does not make it, people.

Yes, obesity is a problem. You already know it's a problem I'm handling at this time (7 pounds down, 4 bajillion more to go!) But DIET CAKE is not going to make the problem go away. When it comes down to the essence of the thing, I think obesity, and therefore, Diet Cake, are results of the same issue. The issue being that of fearful living.

If you're living with absolute abandon, you'll eat eggs, sugar, chocolate, and heavy cream. Oh, and lots of dark chocolate! But, if you're only eating with abandon, (and by "you" I mean "me") and not LIVING with abandon, you'll become fat. If you can also MOVE, write, sing, work, talk, travel, love, adventure, and MOVE SOME MORE with abandon, you can eat with abandon and not become fat.

My point being, DON'T FALL FOR THE DIET CAKE!!! It's a total sham. So are the spray-on foods. They're a ploy to get you to both eat and live fearfully. Instead, eat the real cake and learn to love hiking, kayaking, the high you can get from sweating, swimming, or athletic sex. Do something else you love more often, even if it's not exercise: write, bead, walk, draw, paint, sing, or sculpt.

Do it all passionately. Have your cake and eat it, too. Otherwise, what good is the cake?