If you swallow chewing gum, it remains in your stomach for seven years! Just kidding! This is definitely an old myth told by parents to stop kids from swallowing their gum.
People have chewed gum since ancient times. The Aztecs and Mayans enjoyed chicle, a type of tree resin. Modern gum is made of a mixture of resins, elastomers and waxes… which technically makes it indigestible. Help, you gulped down some bubble gum by accident! Don't worry. Your body's digestive system will deal with it the same way it does with other stuff: convert it into poop!
If you swallow gum, it first travels into your stomach. The sugar and flavourings are digested further and turned into energy for your body. The digestive system is very good at sorting the parts of food that it can use from the unusable substances. The gum base gets pushed unchanged through the small intestine, and continues into the large intestine. Within a few days, it exits with all the other unusable parts of your food.
But too many indigestible items can potentially cause blockages in the digestive tract. So CHEW your chewing gum, and avoid swallowing it if you can!
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