Vaping vs. Chewing Gum

The next time some ties to tell you about the evils of vaping and why it should be regulated into oblivion or banned outright, ask them how they feel about chewing gum.

First off, chewing gum is clearly marketed at children. I mean just look at the brightly colored packaging! and those fruity flavors? definitely targeted at children!

It's also unhealthy! A recent study published in the journal Eating Behaviors showed gum chewing mint-flavored gum reduced the intake of healthy food (fruit) and increased the likelihood of eating junk food such as potato chips and candy. Gum chewing can lead to symptoms of temporomandibular joint disorder and can contribute to irritable bowel syndrome. In addition, artificial sweeteners such as sorbitol and mannitol, often found in chewing gum, can cause diarrhea in otherwise healthy people.

What about the other ingredients? just because you don't generally ingest your gum doesn't mean that those ingredients don't go into your body.

 The ingredients in gum travel into the bloodsteam faster and in higher concentrations than food ingredients, because they absorb straight through the walls of the mouth, and these ingredients do not undergo the normal filtration process of digestion. - C. Thoms Corriher

Now think about some of the common ingredients listed on a pack of chewing gum:

• Gum Base
• Maltitol
• Mannitol
• Artificial and 'Natural' Flavoring
• Acacia
• Acesulfame Potassiu
• Butylated hydoxytoluene
• Calcium Casein Peptone-calcium Phospate
• Candelilla Wax
• Sodium Stearate
• Titanium Dioxide

And then there are toxins. A study published in the September 1992 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that the lanolin in chewing gum contains several types of pesticide. Some of the identified pesticides potentially could accumulate in fat tissue, and some could accumulate in the milk of breast-feeding women. According to the MedlinePlus website products that contain lanolin can cause poisoning.

Chewing gum... it's being sold to our children and it contains poison.

But it gets worse! some chewing gums also contain nicotine!

Kids might start chewing gum because it's the 'cool thing to do' and then get addicted to the nicotine. which clearly makes chewing gum a gateway to smoking cigarettes!

And let us not forget that chewing gum is certainly a public nuisance. I can't tell the number of times I've narrowly avoided prison time by, just barely, resisting the urge to violently remove the teeth of someone loudly smacking their gum. I mean, seriously, and for the love of all, if you really feel the need to masticate like a cow, go do it in a grassy field somewhere, away from me! Then there is the old gum and wrappers all over the sidewalks. how much do our cities spend each year cleaning that up?