Deborah Schimberg, CEO of Verve, Inc. joined Andrea Donsky and Lisa Davis on Naturally Savvy Radio to discuss natural alternatives to synthetic chewing gum. [The following transcript has been edited for print.]
Listen to the full radio interview here
Participants:
Lisa Davis, MPHAndrea Donsky, RHNDeborah Schimberg, CEO of Verve, Inc.
Introduction: Honest information about living a healthy lifestyle on radiomd.com. It’s times for Naturally Savvy with Natural Visionary Andrea Donsky and Health Journalist Lisa Davis.
Lisa Davis: My name is Lisa Davis and I am a gumaholic. But that's okay, right Andrea? Because I am chewing natural gum, yay! And Andrea I know that you love natural gum and we both love Glee Gum. Woohoo!
Andrea Donsky: We do. We call Glee Gum in our house, Kid Gum. That’s what my kids call it because that’s the only one they are allowed. They’re not allowed to chew any gum with aspartame. We are really excited to have Deborah, founder of Glee Gum on the show today. Welcome to Natural Savvy radio where we love Glee.
Deborah Schimberg: Thank you very much I appreciate that.
Lisa Davis: Oh it’s so nice. I love reading the story about how you wanted to have a natural gum and getting rid of, like Andrea mentioned, not letting her kids have the aspartame. I loved reading about your travels and actually getting the gum from the tree. So tell us the whole thing, how you got this passion for creating a natural gum and why it’s so important that this is the type of gum we need to be chewing.
Deborah Schimberg: Thank you so much. Let’s see. Well I got started with our company, it’s called Verve and we got started, gosh almost twenty years ago at this point. I was very interested in chicle which in English it’s chicle and in Spanish it’s chicle, which means actually gum in Spanish. It’s a raw material that comes from a tree. If you can picture say maple syrup or latex rubber, it comes from a tree, it’s a sap and the basis of chewing gum. Most of us have never thought of it, and I certainly hadn’t. Where does come from? It’s sort of something that is like Scotch tape. I had the opportunity to go to Guatemala back in the early 1980s and when I did I learned about chicle and these trees and the fact that the harvest of this sap is something that they can do over and over. In other words, every five years or so, but for the life of the tree. So, the use of chicle is a means of sustainability and sustainable income for the people who harvest it. I was really intrigued. I never knew where gum came from and did a little research and found out that actually at this point, and at that point, and still, most of the gum that people chew; Wrigley’s, Bubblicious, Trident and more, is all synthetic gum base.
Lisa Davis: Oh, interesting.
Deborah Schimberg: So I was very interested to try to create a natural chewing gum that would be made from chicle for ecological reasons, in order to help preserve the rain forest. But at the same time, learned about all of the ingredients that are in most conventional gum. And by that I mean, I think Lisa mentioned, aspartame, which is an artificial sweetener but is in both sugar-free and gum with sugar nowadays. So aspartame, which some people consider to be a neurotoxin has incredibly bad side effects. But in addition to that, all of the colors and flavors and really there are some pretty incredible flavors these days in gum, are generally artificial. So since kids are big consumers of gum, they’re eating and consuming artificial colors and artificial sweeteners and artificial preservatives and so forth. So we started Glee Gum with the idea of making a natural chewing gum that would not harm anybody’s health. At this point we are the only gum on the market which is all natural and we are verified by the Non-GMO project that none of our ingredients contain any GMOs as well. Our attitude is gum should not be something that you have to think about. Generally speaking it’s an impulse item and people don’t think about it. But we want them to think about it, be aware of the alternatives and then try Glee Gum. By chewing Glee Gum, they don’t have to go back to a state of ignorant bliss, if you will.
Lisa Davis: Well that’s for sure, Deborah. For me, as a mom of three kids, and I find that most kids and most parents, because a lot of people don’t realize that if they have it, they could have up to three different kinds of artificial sweeteners in it. For me, as a mom–I spoke to my son’s class a couple of years ago and I asked the class how many kids in the class chew gum. I think everyone except two kids picked up their hand. Then I asked them how many of them get a headache or feel something after they chew it and half the class raised their hand. I remember thinking, “Oh they don’t really understand my question, but let me probe.” And then I asked them, “What are the kind of side effects that you guys get?” And I had kids saying they get headaches, one child’s sister threw up after chewing gum, another one didn’t feel so good, and I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, it’s probably the side effects from all of the artificial sweeteners.” And it’s not just one. You’re talking Ace K, you’re talking aspartame, you’re talking sucralose in some cases and their companies are coupling their gum and just piling on those artificial sweeteners. So what I’d like you to do, if you can, is talk a little bit about why companies are using those artificial sweeteners and how they’re – I mean we’ve know they’re harmful because we’ve written a book on Junk Your Junk Food, for those of you out there who’ve read our book, and Glee Gum is in our books so we are big fans of Glee Gum. But, why are companies using these artificial sweeteners?
Deborah Schimberg: That is a great question because as I said, people will write to us and say, I can’t believe that even say Juicy Fruit which is a brand that has been around forever, now has aspartame and it didn’t have aspartame once upon a time. So it’s very, very difficult to avoid these artificial sweeteners unless you specifically look for alternatives. My understanding is the reason aspartame and Ace K and others are used is because they’re very long lasting sweeteners and so the holy grail with chewing gum, of course, is people want the taste to last a long time, not just a burst of flavor in the beginning. So what happens is the gum companies use aspartame and Ace K in order to lengthen the time that the flavor lasts in your mouth. Generally speaking, and this is kind of an interesting thing, when you chew out the sweetener, you chew out the flavor. So you can actually take gum that seems like it doesn’t have any flavor and dip it say sugar or something, and the flavor will be enhanced, if that makes sense.
Lisa Davis: Mm-hmm, yes.
Andrea Donsky: Yeah, sure.
Deborah Schimberg: So what happens is the length of time that the sweetener has a direct impact on the length that the flavor lasts in your mouth, if that makes sense.
Lisa Davis: Yes.
Deborah Schimberg: It’s also extremely cheap. Those chemical sweeteners are much sweeter than sugar and other kinds of alternatives. And of course, nowadays when a lot of dentists don’t want their patients to chew gum with sugar, then the race is on to find the least expensive sweetener as well and these are all chemical alternatives. I’ve even heard of a new one that’s out and this has a significantly dangerous impact. I’ve heard of new sweeteners that are so intense, because aspartame is a very intense sweetener, it’s much sweeter than sugar and many of the sweeteners are, they’re actually sweeter than sugar by a significant degree. I’ve heard of new ones that are so sweet that what happens is the confectionary companies and snack companies don’t have to list them in the list of ingredients because they are so sweet that they put a very finite amount of the sweetener in their product. So if it’s less than a certain percentage, they don’t even have to list it. But what’s dangerous for consumers is you may not even know that the ingredient is included in the food product that you’re consuming. So, this issue of artificial sweeteners is a really important one.
Lisa Davis: It’s a big one.
Deborah Schimberg: And gum is something that people don’t tend to think of. I think people are aware of artificial sweeteners more when it comes to soda pop.
Andrea Donsky: Yeah, that’s for sure.
Deborah Schimberg: But not necessarily gum. So it’s interesting that your students put those two together.
Andrea Donsky: No and you’re right. Like I said, in my house we don’t allow it. When my kids do get it from somebody else, it really irritates me. So I’m really happy that you were on our show today Deborah. We’re out of time today, but please visit Deborah’s website at gleegum.com and follow them on Twitter @gleeguy. I’m Andrea and I’m with Lisa. Stay well.
Listen to the full radio interview here
