Thursday, October 15, 2009

Fit's Citrus Mix Gum


If there were ever proof that gum is a boring product and almost all of the limited angles associated with marketing it have been played out, it is this gum. When I bought it, my motive was to get something other than throat lozenges to help combat my dry throat on days when I did a lot of teaching. When I looked inside, there was a whole other dimension to this product.


The gum actually comes with instructions for how to remove it from the box. I don't think I've ever needed to be told how to chew gum before. I'm guessing Lotte, which produces this gum, must feel that its consumers are especially dumb. They even give you illustrations.


The whole point of this gum chewing instruction sheet is to let you know that the complex process of removing the wrapper from the gum and placing it in your mouth has been made more convenient and simplified for you by the good folks at Lotte. When you grab a piece of gum from the box, the bottom half tears along a perforation and stays stuck in the box so you can raise the exposed gum to your mouth and shove it in. I'm surprised they don't include pictures of how to move your jaw so you can understand how to actually chew. I'm even more surprised that they don't have an illustration of a throat with a "no" illustration (circle with a line through it) to make sure you don't swallow it.

The gum itself is billed as having long-lasting flavor and it actually does retain diminished flavor for up to about a half hour. The intense flavor that comes at first lasts a far shorter time. It's not a very pleasant citrus blend though. The main element is grapefruit and lemon and it strongly tastes of artificial sweetener. Maltitol and Erythritol are the first two ingredients, after all. This keeps the entire box of 12 small pieces (the same size as Dentyne) down to 32 calories, but it's just not very good. I won't be buying this gum again. Well, I might buy it again if I ever suffer severe brain damage and forget how to unwrap gum and put it in my mouth.

If you'd like to download some desktop pictures of this gum's promotional pictures (an iPod style dancing silhouette), you can get them here.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm having a fit for FITS... haha I have not tried these either...OH did you find the crunky halloween yet.. it is reminiscent of Pumpkin Mouse with whip cream... LOTTE never disappoints...

Jen said...

awesome blog! I love it ^^ I've been enamoured by the plethora of kit kat since I moved here, but you have taken this to a whole new level =D I'm linking to you from my blog, hope that's ok!

anchan said...

hahaha, yeah, I suppose you could forget... maybe useful on a bad hangover day?

Helen said...

Now I've got those instructions stuck in my head...Pick! Get!! Pull!!!

ACK!

ebidebby said...

Kind of like instructions on the shampoo bottle...

yodasmith said...

I'm sorry you wasted your money, but it's just as well. Artificial sweeteners are so bad for you, anyway.

Orchid64 said...

Helen: Reading your comment and the instructions written that way made me think this was also possibly a nose-picking tutorial. Ewwwwww!

Ebidebby: Later, rinse, repeat. I always thought they did that to get you to waste shampoo by encouraging you to do it twice. ;-)

Yoda: Ah, but the money was not wasted. I got to write a silly review of the gum! ;-)

Thanks to all for the comments!

Orchid64 said...

Thanks to everyone for the comments and for reading, I appreciate them!

Girl Japan: I haven't found it yet, but I figure I might come across it next week when I go searching for the Anko Pepsi. :-)

Jen: Thanks for the kind words! I really appreciate it! And thank you for the link! I'm going to subscribe to your personal blog and follow your posts!

anchan: That might work, except I don't drink alcohol. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Did i just call something we eat an animal... gosh.. my spelling.. HORRIBLE.. haha