There are just so many gums on the market right now that it’s hard to make any kind of decision on what you wanna chew. There must be at least 4 or 5 different mint flavors per brand from what I see in the checkout lines, not to mention all the fruit or combination flavors. I’ve even seen gum that’s supposed to taste like desserts. Now Stridehas come out with a new Wintermint gum sponsored by snowboarder Shaun White.
Dentyne Pure
Dentyne Pure gum touts that it will “purify your breath†with natural botanical accents. The claim is that it “Neutralizes bad breath odors caused by bacteria and food.â€
Mint with Melon Accents
The gum is a standard square shape, white with a harder candy coating over top of it. Upon the initial “chewâ€, the mint flavor is almost chemical in taste. This was almost a complete turn off from chewing it any more. But, as a Candy Addict, I must persevere. The candy shell breaks easily and the gum underneath is a good soft, but not too soft gum. The mint flavor is very sharp at first but does mellow off into a more natural mint flavor as I chewed. As for the “Melon Accentsâ€, I never found them. Once in a while there might have been a hint of something other than mint but it disappeared just as fast as it came on. As for purifying my breath, it only did that so long as I was chewing the gum. Once I finished the piece, there really wasn’t any long-lasting effect.
“Mega mystery” implies some serious mystery is about to happen. Considering a 10.0 on the Richter Scale is epic, I’d say “mega” would logically fall somewhere between a 7.0, known as “major”, and a 9.0, known as “great”, on the Mystery Richter Scale. Since Stride is known for it’s ridiculously long lasting gum, one can also assume that Mega Mystery gum has some seriously sustained mystery in store for us. All of these hypotheses hold true with this gum.
I don’t know what the heck is in it! The ingredients are of no help, either. I guess that would really ruin the surprise to have the mystery ingredient spelled out in plain sight, though, huh? “Natural and Artificial flavors” is the only clue we get. And, that’s no clue at all because, well, doesn’t that encompass every flavor that exists? The tie-died packaging also has every example of the color spectrum on it, so another dead-end.
All right, just finished lunch – a little Mexican (food, not person) – and I could use a little oral refreshing, if you know what I mean. I’m salivating for my all-time favorite and everyday afternoon go-to, Orbit Citrusmint gum. I’ll admit, I was skeptical of this flavor combo at first, fearing it might go the way of post-teeth-brushing orange juice, but how unfounded those fears were. Oh how I love its delicate balance, its burst of refreshing powers sans dental cleaning aftertaste. (I’m also a fan of orange-flavored toothpaste and Listerine, it should be noted, as means for washing away my sugary sins.) Yes, salsa be damned, I need some immediately! But wait… oh, that’s right, I have a box of Stride Always Mandarin waiting to be chewed and reviewed. Orbit will have to take a backseat for now… it’s Stride time. (And, as their somewhat perplexing name indicates, it’s always mandarin time.)
Okay, off the bat, the box flips down rather stealthily to expose two rows of gum and what appears to be some sort of word game, presumably to give you something to “do while you chew,†which could be a long time, apparently, as their tagline is “Ridiculously long lasting gum†and their website promises flavor that lasts “…for like… ever.†Really goin’ for that teen demo there, huh? Well time will tell, Stride, time will tell.
Just a little over a year ago I wrote a quick article about the announcement of Stride Gum by Cadbury-Adams. On January 9. 2007 we had our 12th comment on that article and the first one that mentioned eating the wrapper:
Can you eat the Stride bubble gum wrapper? Someone is telling people that it is edible…Is it?
Chew the wrapper? Where did this come from? I know you can eat the inner rice paper wrapper of Botan Rice Candy, but chew the wrapper of a gum? I dismissed it as the ravings of a lunatic Candy Addict, but then we kept getting more and more comments sparking a debate on the chewableness of the wrappers. We currently have 64 comments on that article – most of them dealing with whether or not you can chew the wrapper.
I did some poking around and there are many instances online of people either saying you can chew the wrapper or people asking if it’s true. At the time of this writing, even the Stride Gum wikipedia page says the wrappers are made of rice paper and can be eaten.
So, I finally decided to do something about this. I contacted Cadbury-Adams, the makers of Stride, to get to the bottom of this. I posed one simple question: “Are Stride Gum wrappers intended to be chewed?” This is the official response I received:
While Stride(r) gum is designed to be chewed for a ridiculously long time, our gum wrappers are not. All of our gum wrappers are made with materials that comply with FDA regulations for food contact materials; however, none of our chewing gum wrappers are designed to be ingested. While there’s nothing toxic in them, gum wrappers aren’t intended for ingestion and gum wrappers should not be eaten. Should you have any questions or concerns about your children ingesting gum wrappers, please contact your doctor or other health care professional.
(note that the above official statement goes for all of Cadbury-Adams gums – not just Stride)
So, there you go. Myth debunked. Can you chew the Stride gum wrappers? Yes – just like you could eat/chew any piece of paper (though it’s not recommended). Should you chew the Stride Gum wrapper? The official word says no. The wrapper is not intended to be chewed or eaten and will not add anything good to the gum (though it won’t hurt you). Just enjoy the gum as they intended it – wrapper-free!
