Is There Gum in Your Mouth? Congrats! You're a Patriot.

By L. Stolpman in Food on Aug 24, 2009 3:40PM

Gum seems to be quite the topic lately. The International Chewing Gum Association's website now features a pretty cool Flash site on how gum is made - both sticks and pellets. And you may have heard that chewing gum may help you drop some pounds or make you smarter. (By the way, our very own Wrigley sponsored that research...so take that as you will.) Mental Floss blogged about gum recently and devoted a couple of pages in its most recent issue on the chewy substance. It was this article's story about Chicago's own Wrigley Company that caught our eye.

According to the article, when World War II hit, there was a shortage of the ingredients necessary to produce enough gum for both the soldiers and the gum chewers back at home. The big wigs at Wrigley had heard that soldiers relied on the gum (namely Doublemint and Juicy Fruit) to prevent dry mouth and so they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly. Okay, no, not that - they sent all their gum over to the soldiers and began running ads about how Americans awesomely sacrificed their gum for the boys overseas in the name of democracy. And you know what? It worked; Wrigley "emerged stronger than ever."

Now, part of the reason we find this story interesting is that we have a Korean mother who still chews Juicy Fruit gum. When asked why Juicy Fruit when there are tons of different gums now available... we learned that the U.S. soldiers in Korea during the Korean War would give gum to the children. What kind? You guessed it: Wrigley's Juicy Fruit. And she remembers that gum and it tasted like sweet, sweet democracy. So, Wrigley, if you're listening?

IT WORKED. It totally worked.

Picture by Doramon.