As a child who has chewed countless pieces of chewing gum from childhood to adulthood, I have a deep affection for chewing gum.
Every time I can chew the gum until the taste is gone. And sometimes when you want to spit out the gum but have nowhere to vomit, simply swallow it in your stomach. The silky cool sensation lingers in my throat and esophagus for a long time, and it's a beautiful feeling!
But then again, we eat chewing gum every day, but do you really understand everything about chewing gum? Not necessarily!
The past and present lives of chewing gum
Speaking of the history of human chewing gum, it is really a bit old.
For thousands of years, people in different parts of the world have had the habit of chewing something in their mouths to keep their mouths fresh.
For example, the ancient Greeks liked to chew resin, while the Indians liked to chew the juice of the sticky juice in the trunk, the Maya in Central America liked to chew gum gum, and modern Americans were once very popular to chew paraffin... I don't know if it will taste strange when such strange things enter the mouth?
Of course, these are at best the prototypes of chewing gum and have not been commercialized. Chewing gum in the modern sense did not get invented until the 19th century.
In 1848, the American John B. Curtis found that the locals liked to chew resin to freshen their mouths, so he boiled a large pot of spruce resin, cut it into thin slices and sprinkled with corn flour to prevent it from sticking to each other, and wrapped it for sale. He said on the label of the package: "State of maine pure spruce gum."
As a result, he was so successful that the first commercialized chewing gums in the history of the world were officially launched. John Curtis is also known as the father of chewing gum.
Yes, you read that right, the first chewing gums in human history looked like this
However, this chewing gum itself also has a lot of imperfections, first of all, its raw materials use spruce resin, but it is indeed pure natural pollution-free. But where can you find so many spruces to cut and extract resin? This severely limited the production capacity and production area of chewing gum, and also made the popularization of chewing gum impossible in that year.
More than 20 years later, in 1869, a new type of chewing gum recipe was patented, and this new type of chewing gum substrate came from another American, Thomas Adams, but this invention came to be a mistake, because it was originally used not to eat, but to replace rubber!
In the 1860s, Antonio López de santa anna, a Mexican dictator in exile in the United States, went into exile in New York after his defeat in the United States. At that time, the demand for rubber in the US market, where industry was just emerging, was extremely large, and he saw business opportunities so he brought a large number of heart fruit gum from Mexico, hoping to replace rubber and make a windfall.
Early chewing gum advertising
During this time, he met Thomas Adams, who also saw the commercial prospects of the resin, so he began to study it and use it to prototype tires, rain boots, toys... But nothing worked out.
But fortunately, he found that this resin could be chewed and eaten by chance... So a rubber that was originally intended to be used in tires turned out to be a food, contributing to the material revolution in the field of chewing gum production. Adams has since embarked on a path of soaring glory.
It's just that poor Anna finally died of poverty in Mexico City in 1876, and didn't share in the half of the benefits That Adams had made on this resin... Silently hurt him.
Yellow Arrows, Green Arrows, and White Arrows gum together
Later, in 1893, the Ligary Company of the United States developed and introduced the juice flavor (today's "yellow arrow") and the spearmint flavor (today's "white arrow") chewing gum, and since then the chewing gum has finally had a different taste.
Today, chewing gum has xylitol, bubble gum (yes, you read it right, bubble gum is also derived from chewing gum), plate chewing gum, sugar-coated chewing gum, functional chewing gum and other categories, the application of various synthetic materials, sweeteners and additives adds a lot of color to the taste of chewing gum.
Today's xylitol chewing gum
Will swallowing gum by mistake will it not digest or even die?
There was a legend that chewing gum would not be digested in the stomach, and could even roam the stomach for up to seven years, and if it was not eaten well, it could die.
Will chewing gum really swallow it like the legend does it go unedigested or even dead? inexistent!
If I hadn't swallowed countless pieces of chewing gum by mistake since I was a child, I wouldn't have lived here to concentrate on writing.
Children with hearts can take a look at the ingredients of modern chewing gum, most of which are edible and easily digested and absorbed by the human body.
For example, wax, resin, emulsifier and other ingredients in the gum base, sweeteners (usually sucrose, glucose, fructose, xylitol, sorbitol, etc.), fillers (usually calcium carbonate powder), food coloring, trace elements (vitamins, trace elements or some Chinese herbal ingredients).
Of course, there are some exceptions, whether the rubber in chewing gum is synthetic or various natural resins, the normal stomach acid of the human body is difficult to dissolve and absorb. But don't forget that our human gastrointestinal tract has a peristaltic function! So there's no need to be afraid of that.
So under normal circumstances, occasionally swallowing a small piece of chewing gum is not enough to be afraid, and slowly wait for it to be excreted with the digestive tract.
But there are always exceptions to everything, such as some bear children with abnormal brain holes.
There was a boy in the United States who was addicted to chewing gum since he was two years old, swallowing several pieces of chewing gum every day, and at most he could eat 7 pieces of gum a day, resulting in a large amount of chewing gum attached to the intestinal surface, and eventually had to undergo hospitalization.
There was also a four-and-a-half-year-old bear girl who swallowed gum and four coins at the same time, and as a result, they stuck together in their stomachs, causing an intestinal obstruction and almost dying.
So, as long as you don't learn to bear children to die, don't eat gum as rice, or swallow something strange while eating gum, you don't have to worry about not seeing the sun the next morning because you swallowed a piece of gum.
About the benefits of eating gum
Having said all that, apart from the traditional need to keep your breath fresh, what good is chewing gum?
In 1996, Japanese scientists confirmed through experiments that chewing can significantly increase blood flow in important brain areas by more than 28% and increase the amount of hemoglobin in the brain that delivers oxygen, thereby improving attention and short-term memory in a short period of time.
Come to think of it, many times when I go to work in the afternoon and want to doze off, chewing two pieces of gum can be much better mentally, which is the reason.
In addition, chewing gum properly can also achieve the effect of exercising masseter muscles and apple muscles, which in turn can delay the aging of facial muscles and help you evolve into a beautiful man and woman.
So you little fairies, there are several large cans of chewing gum in the bag and at home, chew two bites in moderation, fresh mouth, refresh the mind, and more importantly, you can keep young and beautiful!