Hey there Head Squeezers, I hope you're well.
A corker of a question in from Cosmic66 who asks 'What happens if you swallow your chewing
gum?'
Brilliant!
Now I remember my mum used to say to me" Don't swallow your chewing gum because it will get
stuck between you ribs and will stay in your stomach for seven years."
Give us a thumbs up if you also heard that old chestnut!
Or indeed if you swallow your chewing gum like Tom the cameraman who often does it.
Anyway first of all we've been kicking back for a chew for centuries right back in 7000
BC, in Northern Europe, there's evidence that we chewed small bits of black tar.
Each to their own, I guess.
But if you do swallow your own chewing gum these days don't worry your stomach can deal
with it.
Say you swallow something like a tasty burger?
It goes down into your stomach where your stomach acid and enzymes start digesting it
then it's over to your intestines with a little bit of help from your liver and your pancreas
start breaking it down further into something your body can use for energy.
So what about chewing gum?
Well your body can use the sweeteners, the flavourings and the softeners for fuel but
the gum base does hang around for a little while.
And that's because the synthetic chemicals that make the gum chewy, have no role in the
body so just like the bouncer at a night club it will kick the troublemaker out the back
door if you know what I mean.
So for once my mum was wrong on this one, it doesn't hang around for years, just a little
while.
But get this; there was a journal in 1998 that studied three cases of kids who constantly
swallowed their chewing gum.
There was one four year old girl who swallowed so much that she ended up with, and I quote,
"multiple spheres of chewed gum congealed into a rectal mass," lovely stuff.
Anyway that's all the time I got right now.
If you do have any questions on stuff you've always wondered about then send them in on
twitter, on Facebook or in the comments below.
And just like the old chewing gum adverts used to say, if you enjoyed this please share
it with a friend.
Happy Head Squeezing!