To me gums after a while taste like having an old rubber glove in my mouth.

That about the peppermint is interesting! Let’s see if I can find some research about that.

I think I chew a gum once a year 🙂

You often run into a problem with forcing: people hate it and then do the opposite. To make it work, you’d have to make sure they don’t know about it.

Interesting! I bet the good people at Wrigley won’t book you for advertising gigs 🙂

Yup. That’s why you often see warm colors in restaurants.

I’ve put some thought into modulating mechanical processing rates through other means, though. Pungency, length of forks(+how many prongs), volume contained in a spoon, all that. “Forcing it” seems to be a viable solution.