Mind Over Emotions

You should not swallow a gum. It’s indigestible. It will stay long in your stomach.

Everyone had surely heard about this fair-seeming claim about chewing gum. That’s exactly what my parents told me when I was a kid. Since then, I kept that fallacy in mind. Every time, I chew a gum, I am very careful not to swallow it though I was not so sure what would really happen to me if I did.

Now, that “swallowed gum” thingy seems to be just like an old wives’ tale to me.

There’s nothing to support that rumor. No matter how sticky chewing gum might appear, once it’s sent down the digestive system, it would surely be eliminated as human waste in the same way as other swallowed matter. Although gum resists the body’s efforts to break it down, it does not linger in the stomach. Chewing gum is quickly worked into an unchanging mass in the mouth that, unlike other food stuffs, barely gets smaller no matter how hard or how long we chew it. Its resistance to being broken down by the teeth works to support the ideal notion that it has special properties which allows it to lurk in the digestive system.

And it’s not food. About 15% to 30% of it is gum base, a natural or synthetic indigestible rubbery substance that makes the treat resilient to hours of jawing. Vegetable-oil derivatives can be added to keep gum soft. Glycerin maintains moistness. Sorbitol and mannitol add sweetness to sugarless gums and mannitol is often used to dust the gum, along with starch. Artificial and natural flavorings, colorings, preservatives, sugar, saccharin or corn syrup can also be added.