Tag: Trident

Are you the one who wished that a fish-shaped gummy named after a Scandinavian country would be transformed into a piece of gum?

Zoltar says: your wish is granted.

While I am not sure which species of fish the original gummies are meant to mimic (Salmon? Halibut? An artistic rendering of Basking Sharks?), I’ve always admired the fish-shaped chewable candies for their sweet and tart tang, so to find them in gum form ruffled me with confusion, hesitation, and impossible joy at the possibility of such greatness.

The berry gets a massive double layer, while a teeny bit of lemon smooshes itself in the middle. That ratio of flavor distribution comes out immediately in the gum’s taste.

If there was a Seismic Scale of Flavor Intensity, the Lemon of this gum would get a .004. Its lemony, citrus twang just disappears at first chew. Where did you go, Lemon Flavor? Are you jealous that Berry got two layers? Jealousy isn’t good for relationships, Lemon. Haven’t you heard about Brutus and Caesar? The first two Godfathers? That crazy witch in Snow White? Jealousy only brings knives, poison apples, and horse heads in your bed. Don’t let jealousy happen to you, Lemon.

But on the note of vague feelings of injustice, it seems there has never been an official word on Swedish Fish’s actual “berry” flavor, and yet my anxiety and rapidly expanding fear of the unknown seemed fixated on finding the answer. Is it raspberry? Cranberry? Lingonberry? Sour cherry? Berry punch? Is there a professional horticulturalist with a highly refined palate on the blog?

Whatever identity that berry beholds, it presides over the entire chewing experience. I chewed for a solid 30 minutes, enjoying its non-rubbery berry tang that’s both tart and sweet. There was a slight bitterness that came in every now and again (I’m a little sensitive to red dye, so it may have been that), but the overall sugary-tartness made this chewing experience an enjoyably long-lasting one.

But I feel I should give you a warning. This gum lasts very long. So very, very long. Even after you have disposed of your little red knob of rubber, brushed your teeth, and gargled a glug of Spearmint Scope, the berry presence continues to linger somewhere in the back of your throat, which may result in it infiltrating everything you eat. Your tomato soup. Your tuna salad. Your medium-rare bacon cheeseburger. All of them, getting overthrown by a peculiar artificial berry tang.

But, on the whole, I enjoyed this gum. Like a dentist reaching into the jaws of a wild boar just to see if it has teeth, Trident took a risk, and all in the hopes of seeing if they could transform an iconic gummy into a piece of gum. It was dangerous. It was spontaneous. It was successful. Facing such a risk is admirable in its own right. To have it come out successfully? Earns it big points.

Sure, the lemon got lost and the berry flavor comes across as bitter and overpowering at times, but there’s no question that Trident went all-out with flavor authenticity. I will chew my Swedish Fish gum again. Perhaps while staring at Swedish furniture in IKEA after eating some Swedish meatballs.*

*Thank you, Sweden, for being great.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 piece – less than 5 calories, 0 calories from fat, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 25 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 0 grams of sugar, 2 grams of sugar alcohol, and 0 grams of protein.)

Item: Trident Layers Swedish Fish Gum
Purchased Price: $1.49 (single pack)
Size: 14 pieces
Purchased at: Publix
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tastes just like berry Swedish Fish. Flavor lasts forever. Tangy. Soft and chewy. Stays non-rubbery for a good 30 minutes. Zoltar. Basking Sharks.
Cons: Makes cheeseburgers taste like Swedish Fish. Lemon flavor gets jilted. Not shaped like a fish. What is the berry flavor?? Poison apples. Horse heads in your bed.

The first thing that occurred to me when I purchased my trim, little magenta-and-white package of Trident Layers Sweet Cherry and Island Lime sugar free gum is that it sounds like a 70’s-era grindhouse action duo. Sweet Cherry is the prostitute-turned-undercover-inner-city-vice-detective and Island Lime is her hard-hitting, trash-talking, crime-solving Rastafarian partner.

I should invent a secret time machine and become a 70’s Hollywood producer. I’d make millions….. MILLIONS!!! (But maybe not if I forget to adjust for inflation.) The second thing that occurred to me is that it looks like the lime is violently bisecting the cherry on the package. This gum will be rated R.

The Sweet Cherry and Island Lime gum itself is shaped like a rectangular block. Upon first chew, you immediately taste a strong splash of artificial lime flavor. Not terrible, but a bit too strong. Then the cherry flavor comes in. It’s not as potent as the lime… definitely more understated. The cherry is a subtle low note to the lime’s sparking high note. Though I soon began to wish the lime would shut up.

Like other Trident Layers gum flavors, the taste disappears after only a couple minutes of vigorous chewing. I thought for a second that maybe I was chewing too hard, and then I remembered that this is America, and I will chew my gum as hard and as quickly as I damn well please. Nonetheless, I did attempt to chew another piece more slowly to see if the sweetness would stick around longer, but alas, it wasn’t enough to prolong the fruity sensation. If this were one of those old gum commercials where the blast of flavor was portrayed as a bitchin’ wave, I would’ve bottomed out on the ocean floor and shredded my face on a coral reef in seconds. Totally NOT tubular, dude.

Trident Layers Sweet Cherry and Island Lime gum is all right, but its flavor lacks longevity, and even if it did last longer, I probably wouldn’t like it because the artificial sweetness is too much. The overall flavor profile of cherry mixed with lime is that of a jaunty cocktail minus the alcohol (a mocktail), although I guess you could chew this gum immediately after downing a couple shots of straight vodka and really have yourself a drink. I’d imagine you’re saving that kind of thing for the weekend. Or for when Sweet Cherry and Island Lime’s Badasssssss Fruit Splash Song premieres in a theater near you, back in 1974. But perhaps I’ve said too much.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 stick – 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, and 0 grams of sugar.)

Item: Trident Layers Sweet Cherry + Island Lime Gum
Price: $0.99
Size: 14 pieces per pack
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: High notes of lime flavor accompany low notes of cherry very well. Exploitation cinema. Chewing your gum American-style. Mimics the flavor of jaunty, fruit-flavored mocktails. Time machines.
Cons: Artificial sweetness is overpowering. Flavor doesn’t last long. Mocktails. Wipe out, dude. Forgetting to adjust for inflation.

One piece of Trident Vitality Vigorate gum has ten percent of our daily recommended intake of vitamin C.

What!?! Where was this during the 17th and 18th centuries?

If only I could travel back in time to when the East India Trading Company existed so that I could be a crew member aboard one of their East Indiaman merchant ships that were used to deliver cotton, silk, spices, tea, and opium to England. With this Trident Vitality Vigorate gum in hand, I would be prepared to prevent scurvy, while probably high on opium and wrapped in a silk Indian sari. And I could laugh like Nelson Muntz at my fellow shipmates as their teeth fall out and pus-filled wounds form on their skin.

Haw-Haw!

Although, at only ten percent vitamin C per piece, it’s not a great source of vitamin C, but what can I expect from a piece of gum. Of course, if you or I were to go through a pack as quickly as a chain smoker goes through a pack of Marlboro Lights or Charlie Sheen goes through a pack of prostitutes, the nine pieces in each pack would easily give us almost a full day’s worth of vitamin C.

The Trident Vitality Vigorate gum has “a burst of citrus and strawberry” which comes in the form of a naturally and artificially flavored liquid center in each piece. While it says “a burst of citrus and strawberry”, I think a more accurate description would be a burst of orange and a smidgeon of strawberry. Or if you want the Food Network version of the description, it would be a BAM! of orange and a pinch of strawberry.

After about a minute of chewing, the gum provides a slight cooling sensation and the intensity of the gum’s flavor starts to significantly drop after the three minute mark. After that, you’re left to experience a light fruity flavor until your jaw can’t take it anymore or until you chew the orangy bejesus out of the gum.

Overall, I like the flavor of the Trident Vitality Vigorate gum, but I don’t see myself buying it again. I think its gimmick of having ten percent of my daily recommended intake of vitamin C doesn’t work because there are many tastier, and more effective, ways to get enough vitamin C to make me scurvy-proof.

For example, eating a large McDonald’s fries with five packets of ketchup will give me 30 percent of my recommended vitamin C. Snacking on a pack of Skittles will provide almost a full day’s worth of vitamin C. Drinking almost any VitaminWater flavor will give me 100 percent vitamin C per cup. Or if an orange accidentally fell into my shopping cart because I ran into the orange stand at the grocery store while being a rubberneck as I stared at the bacon, I could just eat that.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 piece – less than 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, 2 grams of sugar alcohol, 0 grams of protein, and 10% vitamin C.)

Item: Trident Vitality Vigorate Gum
Price: $1.19
Size: 9 pieces
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Pleasant orange flavor with a hint of strawberry. It has ten percent of my daily recommend intake of vitamin C. I like the box. Maintains its flavor for a decent amount of time. Skittles contains vitamin C.
Cons: Strawberry flavor could’ve been stronger. It has ONLY ten percent of my daily recommended intake of vitamin C. Made with a bunch of sweeteners (acesulfame potassium, maltitol, sorbitol, aspartame, and sucralose). Scurvy. Grocery store accidents. Being in a hotel room with Charlie Sheen.

If Bud Light is going to make up a word like “drinkability” in order to describe their shitty, watery beer, I’m going to create my own lingo when talking about chewing gum.

Despite what a few people think, some chewing gums don’t taste the same. Is a show starring Alec Baldwin the same as a show starring Daniel or William Baldwin? Does Kathie Lee Gifford scare away children when wearing makeup or without makeup? (Okay, that’s was bad example, because she scares either way.) But is a douche bag holding fluid to clean a vagina worse than a douchebag holding Heidi Montag?

Bottom line. There is a difference and some chewing gums have it. It’s called chewability — that just right taste that lasts long enough to make your breath smell like something other than the onions you just ate, satisfy your oral fixation or mask your alcohol-stained breath during a police DUI checkpoint.

The Trident Layers Gum has chewability…most of the time it’s in my mouth, and for a length of time that’s equivalent to how long I last in bed.

It comes in two duo flavors: Wild Strawberry + Tangy Citrus & Green Apple + Golden Pineapple. Each Trident Layers piece looks like a crustless jelly sandwich one might find in an LSD-induced psychedelic dream, or if you’re George Clinton, a Funkadelic dream, baby.

The gum may be layered, but its flavor comes in waves. The Green Apple + Golden Pineapple flavor starts off tasting like a Jolly Rancher green apple candy, but then after about a minute, it starts tasting somewhat like pipe tobacco for 30 seconds. After that it’s pineapple flavor all the way. As for the Wild Strawberry + Tangy Citrus, it begins with a strong citrus flavor, which I believe is orange. After the citrus flavor subsides at about the two minute mark, the berry flavor kicks in. Both varieties begin to really lose their flavor after about ten minutes.

I enjoyed both flavors of Trident Layers, although not during those 30 seconds when the Green Apple + Golden Pineapple tasted like pipe tobacco. It’s like I’m chewing an adult version of Hubba Bubba or Bubblicious gum, except it’s hard to blow a decent-sized bubble with this gum.

But bubbles blowing don’t matter when it comes to chewability. And it also doesn’t matter to blowability, which is used to describe (use your imagination here).

(Nutrition Facts – 1 stick – less than 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, 2 grams of sugar alcohol and 0 grams of protein.)

Item: Trident Layers Gum (Wild Strawberry + Tangy Citrus & Green Apple + Golden Pineapple)
Price: $1.24
Size: 14 pieces
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Tangy Citrus & Green Apple)
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Green Apple + Golden Pineapple)
Pros: Nice flavors. Soft chew. Flavors come in waves. They look super cool when trippin’ on LSD. George Clinton. Alec Baldwin acting in 30 Rock.
Cons: For about 30 seconds the Green Apple + Golden Pineapple tasted like pipe tobacco. Looses flavor quicker than I would like. Kathie Lee Gifford with or without makeup. Daniel or William Baldwin acting in anything.

The new Trident Xtra Care gum is like Viagra for teeth because it makes them hard and able to handle daily pounding if taken at least three hours in advance. I’ve been chewing it for the past few weeks, so I think my teeth are nice and hard. Whatever comes my way, I’m going to pound them hard. I’m going to pound them in the front with my incisors, then I’m going to pound them in the back with my molars, then I’m going to pound them on the side with my canines, and then we’re going to do it all over again until I’m through.

The Viagra-like substance in it that makes teeth hard is a patented ingredient called Recaldent, a unique form of calcium, that’s absorbed right into the tooth, strengthening areas attacked by plaque acids, helping replace minerals in weakened tooth enamel, and ensuring your teeth can withstand an all-day, all-night pounding session. The downside of Recaldent is that it’s derived from milk, so if you’re allergic to milk (not lactose intolerant) and chew on this gum, I suggest you get to a hospital soon after.

According to the Trident website, their Xtra Care gum has been clinically proven to rebuild, protect, and strengthen teeth. So this gum basically has the ability to turn your teeth into the regenerative Claire Bennet from Heroes, except not as hot (Wait…She’s 18, right? She is? Good.) and pictures of them won’t end up on The Superficial with witty comments.

Since I’m not a scientist, dentist or passed any of my college science classes with anything greater than a C, there’s no way I could ever truly find out if Recaldent has the ability to strengthen teeth. I’m just a jackass with a computer and an ability to sometimes type better than a monkey, so I’ll just have to take their word for it. Although I could try to test my teeth strength by catching a bullet with them or biting the Orbit gum girl who says I have a dirty mouth.

Trident Xtra Care gum comes in two flavors: Peppermint and Cool Mint. They’re both minty, but not pound-the-mouth-minty-fresh, like most minty gums I prefer to chew, which give me a cooling sensation that feels like I’m sucking on a huge piece of cocktail ice. When I first put the Xtra Care gum in my mouth, it seemed softer than most others I’ve had, but as time went on it ended up like all the others and got a little hard, so I had to take it out of my mouth. Because of its mild minty flavor, it’s a gum I wouldn’t reach for if I wanted fresh breath, but again its main draw isn’t its flavor, it is its ability to help maintain healthy teeth, which I hope it does because I’m going to go brush my teeth with sugar and rinse it out with a chocolate milkshake.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 piece – less than 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 1 gram of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, 1 grams of sugar alcohol, 0 grams of protein, and 15 minutes of hard pounding.)

Item: Trident Xtra Care
Price: $1.49
Size: 14 pieces
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Sugarless. Low calorie. Fat free. Recaldent has been clinically proven to rebuild, protect, and strengthen teeth, making it the Viagra for teeth. Brushing teeth with sugar. Rinsing sugar with a chocolate milkshake. Being able to handle all-day, all-night pounding from the front, back, and side. Hayden Panettiere.
Cons: Not powerfully minty, like most gum. Comes in only two flavors. Can’t really determine if it’s doing any good, unless you go to the dentist. Can’t be consumed by those who are allergic to milk. I sometimes type better than a monkey. Season 2 of Heroes.