Does It Really Take Seven Years to Digest Gum?

Nope. Hubba Bubba® takes only about a week to digest. This, of course, doesn't mean to go ahead and swallow gum at your leisure. The gummy substance can cause blockages in the digestive tract, which can require surgery to remove in severe cases.

Other things to chew on, or swallow:

• Your system breaks down the sweetners in gum, but other than that, it basically passes straight through.


• U.S. quarters generally can pass through the digestive system, but nothing much larger.


• According to the United States Food and Drug Administrations (FDA), gum is defined as a "nonnutritive masticatory substance."


• The rubber-like material that makes gum masticatory is called elastomers.
• FDA-permitted elastomer ingredients in gum include butyl rubber.


• Butyl rubber is a common component of inner tubes.


• Early forms of chewing gum were found in Europe that date to the Mesolithic Stone Age period. Our ancestors chewed birch bark tar. It probably didn't have a minty flavor.


• Scientists recently recovered DNA from chewed plant material, called quid. The DNA test confirmed the quid was chewed by the Western Basketmakers, a Native American tribe that lived in the South West part of the U.S. about 2,000 years ago.