Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Gum, part 2: chew on this!

I posted recently about giving up chewing gum a while back because I couldn't find any that didn't have nutrasweet. And nutrasweet, for me, is poison, causing migraines and other nervous system issues. Having it in the form of gum is like having a slow IV drip of poison all day long (because I tend to chew a piece of gum for a couple hours, then swap it for a new piece and chomp on that for a while).

Mind you, even without the nutrasweet, I don't advocate chewing gum all day long, because it can cause TMJ (jaw problems), but I do like to have some gum on plane trips, and I do like to have a piece of gum when I want something sweet, but don't want to send my blood sugar all over the place with a big dessert. And I'm not really one to give up easily.

Rather than give up gum for all of time, I did some research. Once upon a time (when we were kids), no gum had nutrasweet. And since there are warnings on all foods with nutrasweet, I figured there must be some alternatives out there for those phenylketonurics for whom consuming nutrasweet could mean having a seizure. If the food industry has alternatives for those eating sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free and meat-free, I figured there must be something for nutrasweet-free out there, even if it's just a company who never changed from using sugar.

Here's what I found:

Spry gum, made with xylitol. I like the cinnamon, but of course that's my favorite gum flavor regardless of the sweetener.




SteviaDent. made with stevia. Haven't tried this yet.



Glee Gum, either with sugar (and no artificial ingredients!) or xylitol.








So, I have gum again. Chew responsibly don't get TMJ just because you can!

Happy New Year and happy chewing~

Carla Ulbrich, The Singing Patient



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