A Phone App You Can Smell

With our digital menus, one of the questions we often jokingly get is, "Can you smell the photos?" Well, no... not right now at least.

It appears a Japanese company named Scentee has developed an app that lets you smell your food. The idea behind this app, and accompanying software, is to help people diet. Basically, the company says that the mind and the stomach act together for food cravings. They say that the mind can trick the stomach into thinking that it's satisfied.

What you do is eat something small and low in calories such as rice. But, you release the smells of something like barbecue, short ribs or cinnamon, amongst others. So while you are eating rice and smelling a nice braised short rib,  your stomach, is tricked into thinking that it's eating something else, something more fulfilling. Thus, you can always walk away from a light, low-calorie meal feeling like you indulged in something with some substance.

Overall, the jury is still out on this app, the software and the theory. But, to have an app out there that can distribute different scents is a pretty neat thing. If they have come this far, maybe someday technological advances will lead to smells on a restaurant's menu.