Daily
Mail: Recent advances in nanotechnology could turn Willy
Wonka's Three-Course Dinner Chewing Gum into reality. In Roald
Dahl's 1964 novel
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the gum first
tastes like tomato soup, then roast beef and baked potato, and
finally blueberry pie and ice cream. Now, food scientist Dave
Hart and coworkers at the UK's
Institute of Food Research
(IFR) say they have cracked the secret behind creating such a
stick of chewing gum. Hart and his team are experimenting with
creating different flavor layers separated by a tasteless
gelatin, with a final dessert taste at the center, encapsulated
in a high-tech gel called Gellan. "Tiny nanostructures within
the gum would contain each of the different flavors. These
would be broken up and released upon contact with saliva or
after a certain amount of chewing," says Hart.
