Does your chewing gum lose its flavor?

One of the treats of my childhood was my father splitting a piece of gum into two or three sub-pieces and doling them out to us kids. His gum of choice was Beech-Nut Peppermint. 

While some old-timey gum is still made - think Teaberry and Black Jack - Beech-Nut Gum is, alas, no longer available. No Peppermint. No Spearmint. Unless you want to pay a lot more than a nickel for a 50-year old packet on eBay. (Much as I'd love to re-experience that half-piece of gum, I would only be willing to pay $38.46 for a stale pack of gum. The only way I'd pay that much is if my father came along with it. For that I'd pay an awful lot more than $38.46...)

Anyway, Beechnut was sure a major gum brand when I was a kid. For a while there, Beech-Nut sponsored Dick Clark's Saturday evening show, which was like American Bandstand, but without the dancing. The audience - a crowd of finger-popping teenagers - chanted the theme song: "Who chews Beech-Nut Spearmint Gum? We chew Beech-Nut Spearmint Gum?" Then we got to see and hear Jackie Wilson belting out Lonely Teardrops. Etc.

Gum was a big TV advertiser back in the day. "Double your pleasure, double your fun" with double-good Doublemint gum from Wrigley's. 

"Yikes! Stripes! Fruit Stripes got it." And I liked Fruit Stripes, even though it was a bit sour flavor and hurt your mouth a bit. Unlike the other great and glorious fruit gum, Juicy Fruit, which was sweet.

What else was there? Chiclets, which had a nice satisfying little crunch to them. And Dentyne, a pink gum that came in tiny little pieces that my father never would have been able to split.

I didn't chew a ton of gum, but I did chew gum regularly enough that I know what all these gum flavors were like and could definitely pass a blind taste test to identify them. 

You were not, of course, allowed to chew gum in school, and kids who did so were forced to a) spit it out; b) swallow it; or c) wear it on their nose. I was way too goody a two shoes to ever chew gum in class.

Speaking of shoes, gum of the discarded, ABC (Already Been Chewed) variety was definitely a hazard to your shoes. Sure, stepping on gum was no where near as awful as stepping in dog crap, but scraping a wad of chewed gum off the bottom of your shoe was no treat. Especially difficult when you were wearing sneakers. 

And then there was bubble gum, either the stiff, nasty cardboard type that came with baseball cards, or the bright pink Bazooka that came wrapped in a Bazooka Joe cartoon. Blowing bubble gum - the bigger the bubble the better - wasn't exactly an art. I don't know anyone who couldn't do it. But it was a bit edgy in that there was always the possibility that your bubble would burst and you'd have to peel it off your cheek or, worse, try to get it out of your hair.

While grownups chewed gum, it was closely associated with obnoxious teenagers, with wise guys. Which, of course, made it all the more alluring to us kids.

But gum chewing is on the wane. 

Gum has had a bad pandemic: with mouths cloistered by masks, dates delayed and clubbing cancelled, sales of gum fell by 14% worldwide in 2020 over the previous year. Yet sales had been in decline even before covid struck. Why has gum come unstuck?

...Some reckon smartphones are responsible: people had something else to distract them at the supermarket checkout (many people buy gum on impulse). A surge in online shopping was also a factor. Others blamed the rise of alternative breath fresheners, such as mints. (Source: The Economist)

And then there's the artificiality of it: 

In the 1950s manufacturers swapped chicle for synthetic rubber and plastic, which were cheaper. 

Rubber and plastic? This I did not know. (And did The Graduate know about the plastics part of it???) 

It gets even worse in terms of ingredients:

Most gums are also made with a base that contains synthetic rubbers, emulsifiers, the controversial preservative BHT, and a plastic called polyvinyl acetate. What’s more, some gums contain titanium dioxide, an ingredient commonly found in sunscreen, says Scott Keatley, R.D., of Keatley Medical Nutrition Therapy. (Source: Prevention)

Anyway, now that I know what's actually in gum, I'm guessing that my annual purchase of a one or two packs will dwindle to zero. And that sentiment goes double(mint), even triple, for the ingredients-conscious young folks.

The anti-gum consumption movement is mostly impacting "Big Gum" - i.e., the likes of Wrigley's. New "natural" gum brands are taking hold. No rubber and plastic here. Gum is back to chicle. It's natural, it's "clean." And, of course, it costs more.

That's about all I have to say about gum, other than to bring up the classic question of yore.

Not that I ever knew the answer to begin with for old-school gums - who saved gum overnight? plus my bed didn't have bedposts - but I do wonder whether the new "clean" gum loses its flavor on the bedpost overnight? 

Oh me oh my oh you
Whatever shall I do?
Hallelujah,
The question is peculiar
I'd give a lot of dough
If only I could know
The answer to my question
Is it yes or is it no?
Does your chewing gum lose its flavor
on the bedpost overnight?
If your mother says don't chew it,
Do you swallow it in spite?
Can you catch it on your tonsils,
Can you heave it left & right?
Does your chewing gum lose its flavor

on the bedpost overnight?

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