all the famous brand names, have aspartame for sugar free. there are specifically non-aspartame sugar free gum.

Xantham gum is petroleum based no?

Edit: I mean that as a bad thing.

A whole, dried clove held in your cheek. Eat a piece of pickled ginger. Rinse and gargle with bicarb water.

Yes it's true. Gum base is made from various polymers and plastics, either synthetic or naturally extracted from plants. Regardless of whether it's natural or synthetic, some microparticles will strip off into your saliva during chewing and enter your digestive tract. The vast majority of this will pass all the way through your digestive system without ever being absorbed into your bloodstream. But there may be nanoparticles small enough to pass through your gut membranes into your bloodstream.

The amount that gets absorbed is unknown, as are the long term affects of this. It's clearly not dangerous in the short term, else billions would be sick all the time from chewing gum. But more science needs to be done to fully understand the implications of this.

As for alternatives, altoids are a particularly strong mint that lasts, imo. But if mints aren't your jam, you can always keep a small bottle of mouth wash with you to get an occasional swish from (be careful not to dry your mouth out with it, or that will make your breath and oral health worse) and dissolvable breath strips if you can find them (feels like they're nowhere near as common as they where when I was a kid). Also proper oral hygiene including twice daily tongue brushing/scraping keeps your breathe from getting bad in the first place, even if it's not actually minty from that.

It's not natural to have minty fresh breath. It's natural to succumb to infection and die, though, so don't worry if that happens.

To my understanding yes, when the ingredients list includes "gum base", which is a mixture of chemicals like polyethylene (plastic). I believe there are chewing gum products that don't include "gum base" or any other plastic ingredients

it's usually xylitol, but yes.

Floss daily. That's the best way to ensure your breath isn't bad.

Mostly, yes. Although the aspartame part is optional, it could be any other sweetener or even real sugar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gum_base

I was today years old when I learned that talc is used as a filler in in acidic gums, so like every fruit flavor.

Hope they are paying for the asbestos free talc.

it's mostly a type of latex, some waxes, vegetable oils, lecithin, and glycerin, terpenes, but not polymer plastics.

I heard that myself a couple years ago and was equally disappointed/disbelieving. I started looking for more natural plant-based alternatives, but they're actually a plastic polymer too. If you're out hiking and forage for spruce/pine resin directly from the source: it's still plastic. Very surprising, not what I would have intuited.

It's not my field so I don't know if the plant-based stuff is the same level of harm as petroleum-based plastic, but I would imagine either way it's breaking down into undigestible particles that you're stuck with for life.

As far as an alternative goes for minty breath: nothing stops you from cutting out the middleman and chewing on mint leaves directly. They grow like weeds so if you get some in your garden you'll never run out. I guess the freshness probably doesn't last as long that way, but it makes up for itself in intensity which is just as important for a palate cleanser imo. You could probably get more mileage out of it by turning it into iced tea, then you can sip it whenever you need some freshness.