Lifeguard Chewing Gum

When I first started this thing, I didn’t really intend on having it morph into a snack review blog. It just kind of happened. I like to occasionally throw in my random thoughts into their own entry, but for the most part I like doing these reviews because I don’t have to focus all my efforts into a single random thought. I get a lot of random thoughts throughout any given day, and because of my fish brain, they fall out of the bowl as quickly as they jumped in. That’s why I’ll often go into really random tangents and non-sequiturs. It’s just how my scattered mind works. It just so happens that I can slot many of those into snack reviews. Usually. I try my best to slot them in where I feel the transition isn’t too jarring, so as to minimize whiplash. Though I’m sure by now ya’ll are already in a neck brace from reading the previous entries, so we’re all good!

Speaking of crazy transitions, that brings us to today’s review. I didn’t actually purchase this, and it was a freebie. I wasn’t really sure what it was until I looked it up. Apparently Lifeguard is a brand of energy drink that is popular in Japan. All I can really tell is it is created by a company called Kracie, which is pretty awesome as far as names go. They also have a crazy looking rabbit type creature for a mascot. If those crazy, frantic eyes are any indication to the efficacy of this product, surely you can understand why I am a bit hesitant to try this. In fact, when I got my package, the first and only thing I could smell was a distinct, soda-ish smell coming from the box. I had to sniff product until I narrowed it down to this. The smell permeates through the packaging, and the smell is strong enough to reach me even when I put it about a meter away. I feel like I am justified in being wary of this product.

The package I received has 5 pieces. Each piece apparently has some fizzy powder on the inside. I really have no idea if this is supposed to simulate the flavour of the energy drink, or if it’s supposed to also have similar ingredients that will result in a “pick me up”. Given that it’s mid afternoon, I guess it’s worth a shot.

This thing looks surprisingly tough on the outside. When I dropped a piece on the table it hit it with a small thud, so it has at least a decent amount of density to it. The outside looks like a yellow eraser. It looks like it could be used as one too. It’s hard not to be reminded of those liquid filled gums I tried as a kid, where the outside was a rough, firm gum with the inside being a syrup. The whole thing would be somewhat soft at first, but very quickly devolved into a firm, flavourless piece of rubber in my mouth.

I wasn’t sure how hard this would be, so I bit into it very slowly. Turns out it’s actually quite soft, and the inside is the fizzy powder. My first impression is the gum itself tastes alright, nothing special, but the fizzy powder….it doesn’t have much flavour or taste to it. In fact, it kind of tastes bad. I cringed a little when I tasted the powder, so I’m guessing your supposed to pop the whole piece into your mouth and chew it altogether.

Sadly, much like the syrup filled gums from my childhood, this didn’t last very long in terms of flavour. It less than five minutes of chewing before the whole thing turned to flavourless rubber. In terms of whether it is supposed to have a similar effect to the energy drink – I’m not sure. I’ve never really had energy drinks before, so I don’t know if the slight pick up I got was from a combination of the sugar and the placebo effect, or some added chemical in the gum. The one good thing about this gum is it’s the first gum, in a long time, where there is enough for me to blow a bubble with. I know it sounds silly, but its fun blowing bubbles out of your gum and seeing how big you can get it before it pops and leaves behind a sticky, rubbery mess. Good times.

To check that I wasn’t being overly harsh on this gum, I let a few unsuspecting victims try it out. The look on their face when they got to the middle was much similar to my own – one of shock, disgust and confusion. Okay maybe not disgust, but definitely of shock and confusion. Maybe a little befuddlement on the side. The consensus was the stuff in the middle had a strange taste that no one could really pin down, but it was generally not that pleasant or great.

Either way, this is not something I can really recommend to anyone other than die hard fans of the drink it’s based on. Even then, I have a hard time believing they would enjoy this unless there’s some added ingredients (which I cannot discern). I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t technically “pay” for this product. But then again, don’t we all pay one way or another? There’s no such thing as a free lunch, as my old econ prof used to say.