The Anatomy of Chewing Gum

It has been busy the past few days, and I have fallen magnificently short on my goal to write everyday. Even though there are many serious things going on (Supreme Court hearing a case about lethal injections, the New Hampshire primaries, etc.) I'm going to try to get back into the loop of things by writing something a little more light-hearted today.

Anyone who knows me well will testify that I have a serious gum-chewing habit. I know, I know: it is probably terrible for my jaws, but chewing gum actually quells my often-fried nerves, keeps me awake in class, and helps me concentrate when I am reading or writing a paper. Oh yeah, chewing gum also helps prevent that good ol' American habit of Eating Just to Eat, Even When You're Not Hungry (we all do it).

Over time, I have become very particular about the gum I choose. I have stringent criteria by which I evaluate any brand or flavor I try. The next time you are perusing the chewing gum section of the store, take into consideration my expert guidelines to make an informed purchase. You're welcome.



Flavor Enjoyability

The first category by which to evaluate any piece of gum is its taste. This may sound so unequivocally obvious that you're ready to skip down to the next criterion. However, impatient reader, you should pause a moment and heed my word! Gum manufacturers sometimes get a little too experimental with flavor. They will often also create flavor names that do not really say anything at all about how the gum is supposed to taste.

To illustrate the former point, I will single out Bubble Yum's Hershey's Chocolate Flavored Gum. I have to say, it is valiant effort on Bubble Yum's part. It sounded just disgusting enough to have left me skeptical, but novel enough to compel me to purchase it. It wasn't outright intolerable, but, I am sorry to say, I think that chocolate-flavored gum is missing something essential to the experience of eating a real chocolate bar. Perhaps you are ahead of your time, Bubble Yum.

As for ambiguous flavor names, there are two sides to this coin. You might pick up a pack of gum with a really cool name, thinking the taste will be commensurate with the moniker only to be sadly disappointed. Conversely, you might skip over something delightful because the name just does not call to you. Take, for instance, Bubblelicious's Twisted Tornado flavor of bubble gum. One might pass over this gum, intimidated by the hyperbolic meteorological appellation and miss out on delicious flavor and an overall pleasant gum-chewing experience.

Flavor Endurance

Being careful about choosing a tasty gum is important, but equally important--and perhaps less apparent--is just how long that flavor lasts. Trust me, when you have two hours of class and only two sticks of gum to last you, flavor endurance is everything. Otherwise, your choice is running out of gum (not a choice, duh) or enjoying the flavor of your own recycled saliva. Delish.

Most gums are pretty average in the arena of flavor endurance. In more stressful situations, I often find myself needing two sticks of gum to extract the full flavor that I demand from a gum. Some gums maintain moderate flavor for the duration of the chewing experience. With the exception of a few varieties like Cinnamint and Bubblemint (because I have, of course, tried almost all of them), Orbit-brand gums sustain a nice, even flavor for as long as you chew.

As far as flavor endurance goes, a prospective gum purchaser will want to steer clear of the kinds of gum that quickly go bland. Two specific varieties come to my mind when I think about quickly-fading flavor: Wrigley's Juicy Fruit and Fruit Stripe Gum. You don't see the latter flavor around very much anymore, but any kid who grew up in the 90s knows that flashy packaging only conceals a really crappy quality gum. Besides, both types are sugary, which is not very good for your teeth.

Texture

Although some of this depends on how long a pack of gum sits on the shelf before getting into your hands, different brands and varieties have distinct textures. I suppose this category is more subjective than others, but I think there are some things on which we all can agree. There is quite a magnificent spectrum of gum textures, and it would be impossible to cover every nuance in this small guide. Personally, I like a nice balance of softness and resistance--a gum's chewiness, as it were. You need this kind of balance to blow good bubbles: soft enough to get over the tongue, but resistant enough to sustain a bubble shape once you've blown air into the gum.

Probably the biggest textural faux pas is when a gum is brittle, and tends to break into tiny little pieces as you chew it. Aside from making it more difficult to chew or blow bubbles, this type of texture can cause you to swallow the gum. The types of gum that usually commit this mortal sin are the ones with the hard shell--i.e. Dentyne Ice, Orbit White, and Chiclets. This is not to say that a hard-shelled gum will always be more brittle; often these gums are quite soft and refreshing. But if you get a pack that has been sitting on the shelf for awhile, you might be in for disappointment.

Furthermore, brittleness seems also to be more prominent among certain flavors. Unfortunately, I just don't have the knowledge of chemistry to explicate much further. Just know that any brand can have its downfall in texture with a single flavor. It's never a wise move to write off a particular brand of gum for one rogue flavor.

Here's to a more well-versed gum chewing experience. Cheers!