A n d r e w s G u m W o r l d

Arithmetic, originally uploaded by kunja.

We’re always fond of research that shows chewing gum makes you, well, smarter.

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times reported on a research project funded by Wrigley at the Baylor College of Medicine. Those who took part in the study either chewed sugar-free gum during math class, during math homework, during math tests, or they didn’t chew gum at all.

After 14 weeks, the students took a math test and had their math grades assessed. As the Times reported:

Those who chewed gum had a 3% increase in standardized math test scores and had final math grades that were significantly better than the other students. Teachers observed that those who chewed gum seemed to require fewer breaks, sustain attention longer and remain quieter.

While the research didn’t fully explain what the relationship was between gum chewing and math improvement, the lead researcher on the study, Dr. Craig Johnston, said that “there is research demonstrating an increase in blood flow in the brain during chewing.”

The study was presented at the Annual Meeting of Experimental Biology 2009 in New Orleans this past April.

IMAGE: Media.

Clemenger BBDO, an ad agency in Australia, has helped Wrigley plunge into the world of social media by creating The 5 Feed, a website designed to help the gum company “connect with young people who increasingly demand digital involvement and greater creativity; ‘an audience that is seeking, sharing and remixing culture.’”

In a piece earlier this summer in Media, it described the agency’s creation of The 5 Feed site, “a social platform that invites the public to download and remix works from commissioned Australian designers, artists and musicians.”

 You can explore that site, and do your own remixing of culture, here.

ps Wrigley 5 gum flavo(u)r translation guide from the Land Down Under:

Pulse (Australia) = Lush (North America)

Electro = Rain

Cobalt = Cobalt

Baby Ruth Gum, originally uploaded by Waffle Whiffer.

No Chewing Gum Today, originally uploaded by Mediachaos.

IMAGE: Wrigley.

Since we were last here, we’ve had a chance to review several cogent and worthy discourses (along with great diagrams) on how gum is produced, and we thought we’d slip in the links here (including two Flash videos, courtesy of Chewing Gum Associations — of International and Japan fame):

How gum is made, Wrigley

How gum is made, International Chewing Gum Association

How gum is made, Chewing Gum Association of Japan

IMAGE: madehow.com

We’ll confess that it’s been a while since AndrewsGumWorld has deconstructed gum as something other than a cultural force, a litter problem, and/or a creative inspiration for  commercials, photography, advertising and blissful bubbles.

So, we pause for a moment to  remind ourselves where gum comes from (chicle, originally, but not so much any more…unless you buy Glee Gum).

While the image above may not be the perfect recipe (exactly how much chicle do you harvest….how long do you dry it and how hot is the air….and where, exactly, do you get those big pots?), but madehow.com has a great article on how modern chewing gum is made, including this nearly exact accounting of the ingredients to your modern stick of gum:

Federal regulations allow a typical list of ingredients on a pack of chewing gum to read like this: gum base, sugar, corn syrup, natural and/or artificial flavor, softeners, and BHT (added to preserve freshness). This vagueness is mainly due to the chewing gum manufacturers’ insistence that all materials used are part of a trade secret formula.

There’s a lot more detail to be found in the article, including the height of chicle trees (32.79 yards tall) and the importance of centrifuges, greased wooden molds, the exact size of a stick of gum (1.3″ x .449″) and more.

Chew on this, as they say….