I am a gum swallower. Many people cringe when they hear that. I have a hard time chewing something, extracting the flavor and not swallowing it. Just me. I have gotten into the famous digesting gum conversation a lot over the past few weeks because Gila just tried gum for the first time and can't get the hang of spitting it out. So, for once and for all let's settle the gum digesting question.
Luckily for me, I have Snopes- the urban legend debunking site. I love this site because I have a bunch of well meaning yet totally paranoid friends and relatives who freqeuntly send me the typical "world is ending", "9-11 rumor", and "shampoo will kill you" forwards. Whenever I get one of these e-mails, I go to Snopes and do a search on the topic and find out whether it is true or false. For ther record, they are usually false.
Anyway, here is what Snopes has to say about gum.
It's hard to find anyone who hasn't heard this specious claim about swallowed gum, usually when they were children. No, there's nothing to support this rumor; as sticky as chewing gum might appear to be outside the body, once it's sent down the alimentary canal it's no more remarkable in that respect than most anything else we swallow.This oft-repeated claim may stem from genuine confusion over a term commonly applied to chewing gum: indigestible. Although gum resists the body's efforts to break it down (hence the 'indigestible' designation), it does not linger in the stomach. Gum is eliminated as human waste in the same way — and at the same rate — as any other swallowed matter. Granted, it comes out the far end relatively unchanged by the trip, but it does come out on schedule. (Here is the rest of the article.)