Friday, February 22. 2019Why does gum stick to your stomach for seven years if you swallow it?
Mom warned you that gum doesn’t digest; it just sits in your stomach soaking in a stew of digestive and taking up space. Acids and enzymes in your stomach make short work of gum’s sugars and flavor additives, but its synthetic-rubber base is one tough glob to digest. That doesn’t mean gum just swirls around and around in your belly like a penny in a washing machine. Like clockwork, your stomach empties its contents into the intestine for further digestion. Any gum gobs, corn kernels, or other tough-to-digest treats go along for the ride. It all gets pushed to the colon and passed in your poop, looking much as it did when you ate it. Not that we suggest you go looking.
Picture Credit : Google Friday, February 22. 2019Why does bubble gum lose its flavor?
Chewing gum is a funny kind of food – the only kind you’re allowed to play with. Go ahead and chew it, snap it, and blow it into bubbles, but whatever you do, don’t swallow it. Gum’s rubbery properties are a product of its ingredients, including synthetic rubber and softeners that keep it from turning into a chalky block in your mouth. Synthetic rubber? Softeners? Yummy! Or not, which is why gum makers add “flavorings” – the closest thing to food in the ingredients list. And like food, these sweeteners mix with saliva in your mouth and sink to your stomach each time you swallow. Eventually, all the sweeteners head south, leaving you with a flavorless lump of softened rubber to spit into the nearest trash can.
Picture Credit : Google Friday, February 22. 2019Why does sugar melt in water?
Sugar is made of molecules of sucrose, a compound held together by relatively weak bonds. When the sucrose molecules mix with water, the water molecules surround and break the bonds holding together the sugar molecule. Th sugar is still in the water, of course (which is why the water tastes sweet), but now it’s dissolved into the new sugar-and-water mix, called a “solution.” Hot water dissolves sugar more quickly – and can hold more of it – because the heat spreads its molecules farther apart, making room for more sucrose.
Picture Credit : Google
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