Seven Castles

Chewing Gum

                                      

May 20, 2008

 

Chewing gum is a type of confectionery traditionally made of chicle (a natural latex product), but for reasons of economy and quality many modern chewing gums use rubber instead of chicle. Chewing gum is a combination of a water-insoluble phase, known as gum base, and a water-soluble phase of sweeteners, flavoring and sometimes food coloring.

 

Archaeologists have found 9,000-year-old lumps of black tar, with bite impressions suggesting that most of the chewers were kids aged 6 to 15. Two thousand years ago, the Greeks chewed the pale yellow resin from the mastic tree, while American Indians chewed spruce gum.

 

Chewing gum came to modern America via the Mexican General, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who later entered the USA, and settled in Staten Island, New York. He brought with him a big lump of chicle, the dried milky sap or latex of the Mexican sapodilla tree, which Mexicans had chewed for thousands of years. A local New York inventor, Thomas Adams, tried unsuccessfully to turn it into a cheap rubber - but then he remembered how his son and Santa Anna loved to chew chicle together. In February 1871, small tasteless balls of chicle were first sold in New Jersey.

 

One of the nice side effects of chewing gum is that you increase the production of saliva, which is usually good for oral hygiene and your breath. Chewing gum helps to clean your teeth. It does pick the stuffs that stick inside your teeth. People often eat gums like sometime trying to get rid of the smell of the food they just ate, especially something with garlic and onion. The bad side effects include diarrhea, tummy pain and flatulence, mouth ulcers, high blood pressure and low blood potassium, and higher blood mercury levels. Other unpleasant side effects include mechanical injury to the teeth, overuse injury and even extrusion of dental repairs. Chewing gum will even make your face wider. This is because you are constantly moving your jaw and it tends to expand over time. But the overwhelming majority of us chew happily gum with no harmful side effects whatsoever. Interestingly, the United States military have regularly supplied soldiers with chewing gum since World War I because it helped both to improve the soldiers' concentration and to relieve stress. Recent studies show chewing gum can also improve one's mood and memory.

 

Yet, chewing gum in public places has given us the word "gumfitti", referring to gum pollution in public places. Gumfitti has created a whole new expensive industry involving fancy gum-removal devices (solvents, liquid nitrogen, etc). Singapore has even made most non-medical uses of chewing gum illegal.

【作者: zhangliping】【访问统计:】【2008年05月20日 星期二 05:16】【注册】【打印】