Chewing Gum Flavors

by Sarah

My experiment is about how long the flavor lasts in different kinds of chewing gums. I became interested in this topic because I like chewing gum and there are many different kinds of gum. I chose Big Red, Ice Breakers, Wrigley's Doublemint and Spearmint, Juicy Fruit, and Carefree to test. I think Big Red and Ice Breakers will have the longest lasting flavor out of the gums I chose.

Chewing gum is made of a gum base, sugar, softeners, flavorings, and colors. The gum base is mostly rosin from pine trees, the softeners are refined vegetable oil products, and the flavorings are fruit extracts. All the ingredients are blended together to get gum. Then they cut the gum into sticks or chunks and individually wrap each piece.

To do my experiment, I had to buy different kinds of stick gum and gather a few people to chew some of the gum. I made sure all the gum chewed was the same size. Then they had to chew the gum, time how long the flavor lasted, and record the results in minutes. I tested each gum three times and averaged how long the flavor lasted. On average Big Red lasted 27 minutes, Ice Breakers lasted 26 minutes, Carefree lasted 22 minutes, Juicy Fruit lasted 15 minutes, Wrigley's Doublemint lasted 15 minutes, and Wrigley's Spearmint lasted 8 minutes.

As a conclusion I found that Big Red had the longest lasting flavor with 27 minutes and Ice Breakers was not far behind with 26 minutes. Wrigley's Spearmint had the shortest lasting flavor with 8 minutes. In the future I would like to find out: Do different amounts of gum change how long the flavor lasts? What flavor of gum is the flavor that lasts the longest (mint, cinnamon, fruit, bubble gum)?

Chewing Gum Flavors