Smart Time Citrus and Berry Gum

Japan is a country full of thin people. You wouldn't think they'd have all sorts of diet foods or appetite suppressants, but they do. The reason this gum is "smart" is that that you're supposed to be savvy enough to chew it instead of eating when you are hungry. While it does not claim to specifically inhibit hunger, the claim is that the fruit and citrus flavors will satisfy your taste buds and you'll forget about the need to consume actual food. The gum has a berry-flavored liquid in the center which is supposed to spread sweetness in your mouth and satisfy your need to eat.

It smells like citrus when you open the box. The gum is sugar-free and has a crisp candy shell. Each piece has 3 calories and is chock full of chemicals including Maltitol. This is a sweetener which, if consumed in too great a quantity, can result in multiple trips to the bathroom so you have to consume it conservatively.

When you bite into it, the liquid center does release onto your tongue and you get a strong dose of a medicinal berry taste. It is a bit like a good cough syrup flavor at first. It doesn't take long for that flavor to dissipate and you're left with the citrus flavor only. That being said, the citrus flavor lasts quite awhile and is pretty good, though non-descript.

This is not bad gum, but it in no way helps you conquer a rumbling stomach. I ate a piece around 5 hours after lunch when I'm dying for a snack and it only distracted my mouth. If you think you're hungry, but you are actually just looking for some sort of oral gratification, this would probably work fairly well, though not necessarily any better than other gum which you enjoy.

I will note that the gum comes wrapped in a Cadbury wrapper with its distinctive logo and being hungry and seeing the logo of one of the best confectioners in the world doesn't exactly help you distract yourself from eating. I guess that the Japanese aren't likely to make the connection between Cadbury's logo and a nice bar of Dairy Milk chocolate, but most foreign folks sure will. I'm off to find some chocolate.

Clorets XP Original Mint

There is a lot of gum on the Japanese market and I've sampled a bit of it. On the whole, I'm not a big gum chewer as I value my teeth and I don't have bad breath. I know the latter is true because I occasionally verify this fact with my husband when I get paranoid.

A few years ago, a Xylitol craze started in Japan and a plethora of candies and gum were marketed loudly trumpeting the showcase ingredient. Xylitol is a sweetener which reduces plaque on teeth. The Clorets XP sugarless gum, of course, contains Xylitol in addition to a slew of other chemicals including aspartame and maltitol. Maltitol is an artificial sweetener renowned for its ability to move bowels. You don't want to chew too much gum or consume too much candy with it or you'll be enjoying some Ex-lax moments. Aspartame is sold in the U.S. as "Equal" sweetener and can cause headaches or other issues with some people. All in all, this gum is quite the cocktail of sweeteners and artificial ingredients.


This particular gum was being given away free around Shinjuku and my husband was handed a sample pack with two pieces. The center is your usual bit of chewy gum and the outside is a shiny candy shell. If you give it a hard sniff, you get a vague whiff of mint. If you bite into it, you get an overpowering and extremely medicine-like influx of spearmint flavor. For the first minute or so, it is extremely unpleasantly powerful on the tongue and the minty vapors go write up your nasal passages and flare into your nose.

After about a minute of chewing, it mellows out to a less nasty taste but is still very strong. It takes at least 20 minutes before the flavor noticably fades. One of the little pictures on the paper attached to the sample packet shows people saying it's "long lasting". This is definitely true. The flavor in this gum lasts much longer than any gum I've ever chewed in my life. I guess that the "benefit" of the overpowering start is that it lasts a long time.

This long-lasting flavor is supposedly the result of "flavor encapsulation". The leaflet with the sample says there is 2.5 times more mint flavor in this version of Clorets XP than the original version. This is a claim I actually believe after biting into a piece for the first time. The ad also mentions that there is a contest in which 30 gifts worth 2,000 yen each will be given away at various locations around Tokyo as part of the campaign. Oddly, it also recommends you visit YouTube and type in the word "Clorets" in Japanese (クロレッツ). Are Japanese people really likely to go look up a commercial on YouTube?

I would never buy this gum because it's all a bit too much for me and I'm no fan of spearmint or gum. However, if you can't brush your teeth or are worried about your breath after a spicy meal, this gum would definitely go a long way toward helping you not offend the people around you. I know there are several people I encounter regularly who I'd dearly love to encourage to use of this gum.