Gum

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. For thousands of years people have chewed gums that are extracts from trees. Archaeologists working in Finland found gum with teeth marks that is over 5,000 years old. The mastic tree, a relative of pistachio trees, produces a chewable resin used by the ancient Greeks and still today. Chewing It can reduce plaque by 40 percent – so perhaps we should ignore the often-quoted poem – A gum chewing student and a cud chewing cow seem quite alike. But they’re different somehow. The difference is clear, I see it all now; it’s the intelligent look on the face of the cow. Eschew is the world you’d apply to Emily Post’s directives. Singapore had a complete ban on chewing gum until recently – when my girls traveled there people would sidle up to them and whisper “Gum.”