Gum

So I went out to dinner tonight with my momma, and was talking about my blog. I asked her what she thought I should write about for 'G' and her reply instantly was "gum". So I guess today I'm writing about the mundane topic of Gum, because I've no better inspiration (however, before I could do this I had to find and put back on my glasses, so I maybe could`ve written about that, but it`s even more mundane).

Coming into this I figured maybe I should know a bit more about gum than 'ìt tastes good for a little while, and then the flavour goes away' and 'sometimes it's super sticky, and sometimes it's only kinda sticky', so I Googled it. My Google search for "Gum" returned 83,500,000 hits in 0.14 seconds. What? Do we really think about chewing gum that much? Wow... So, being the shirker that I am, I clicked into Wikipedia first and they had quite a wealth of information. Did you know that some form of chewing gum has been around since the Neolithic Period?! I mean, I knew that it was old, but.. Apparently someone out there found 5,000 year old tooth imprints in some chewing gum like stuff made of birch bark tar that maybe had antiseptic properties and other health advantages. Wouldn't it be great if our chewing gum had those advantages?

I actually knew about the Ancient Greeks and their mastic gum, which is from mastic trees, and the American Indians chewing resin, so those weren't surprises for me. However, the first "mass produced" chewing gum using paraffin wax as an ingredient (1869) I found rather gross. And then I learned about the chicle gum. Chicle is this natural latex product that was exported from Mexico to be used to replace rubber originally, and it ended up being used in chewing gum instead because it held flavour better and was smoother than the wax concoction that was in use at the time. Now we use all sorts of chemical substitutes containing aspartame and all that gunk, but originally it  came from a wax substitute. I also discovered that 'Chiclets' gum has been around since 1899, which I thought was kinda neat (because I'm dorky and because I happen to like Chiclets, even though the flavour doesn't last all that long).

That's about all the research I've done into gum because that's all I was willing to do, but I thought I'd letcha know :) If anyone wants to see where I got my information, it was here. I'd just like to add that though I know chewing gum isn't necessarily beneficial to my health and that it annoys some people to no end, I rather enjoy chewing gum. I also normally need to have either chewing gum or hard candies while writing exams, so it turns out this post was fairly relevant as I wrote my first of six exams today.. One down, five to go. However, I'm off to find a cup of tea and relax for the night. Goodnight and always always always dispose of your gum responsibly. If it's not biodegradable, find a trash can! :)