Bubblegum

A squishy, satisfying, sticky substance that you chew. Does that sound familiar? Has an image of thought popped into your head yet? I'm talking about something that we all know we stuck under tables once before. Bubblegum, chewing gum, teachers worst enemy!! Have you ever thought of how bubblegum is made? What's the story behind gum? I'm going to tell you the whole procedure of this delicious sweet!!!

How is it made?

It starts with a little gum base. The stuff that makes it so satisfying and chewy! In old days it was traditionally made from tree resin. Nowadays its synthetic - made from rubbers and plastic. The gum base is placed into a huge mixer and then add flavouring and colour. During the mixing they pour in the mixer through a little tube glucose syrup - a sweetener just to add that touch of flavour. And plus without it the gum would be hard so they need it to keep its constantly soft to be able to chew it calmly. Afterwards they add dextrose, a powdered sweetener. The texture blends for 20 minutes as the stirring action builds up more heat as it goes on. So everything can melt together. When It's finished it will end up as a very sticky soft mixture. It will feel the consistency of bread dough. Now it's transferred into a machine called the pre-extruder. The machine tightens/squeezes the mixture through a thin narrow opening. As satisfying as squeeze toothpaste from its tube!! Afterwards it's thin enough to go through the extruder which shapes it into a continuous long stream of manageable bubblegum which becomes cut into small bite-sized pieces later on. It has to go through an excursion process that will heat up the gum or otherwise if it was put into the wrapper it will stick everywhere. Now the cooling chamber. The gum goes through for about 15 minutes between 37 and 45 degrees fahrenheit. When it's cooled down it comes down to the last step. The “cut-and-wrap”. We obviously know what’s gonna happen now, right? There's actually a machine that can complete that task in a fraction of a second!

Why can't we swallow gum?

Our body struggles to digest plastics and rubber and near the start of the last paragraph i told you that that's what was made of gum right? So if we swallow gum our body can't digest it correctly and it gets sticky inside our body which can be quite dangerous in some cases.

Maybe this can give you something to think about next time your chewing gum.