Your truck breaks down forty miles from the nearest town, your canteen springs a leak, and the only thing in your pocket is a half-empty pack of gum. Maybe it doesn’t look like much, but that pack has fixed teeth, patched gear, and gotten people out of real trouble more times than you’d guess.
Gum costs almost nothing, weighs almost nothing, and does a whole lot more than freshen your breath. Grab a pack next time you’re at the store, because after this list, you’ll never look at it the same way again.
Here are 25 ways a stick of gum can save you when it counts:
25. Fixing a Tooth in the Middle of Nowhere
Lose a filling out on the trail and you know how bad that pain can get, fast. Chew a piece of sugar-free gum until it’s soft, then press it right into the spot where the filling used to be. It won’t fix the tooth for good, but it keeps food and cold air out of that raw nerve until you can see a dentist.
Dentists themselves have said this trick actually works. Just make sure you use sugar-free gum.
➡️ Let’s Make This Recipe: “Better Than Collagen” Gummies
24. Starting a Fire With the Wrapper
That foil backing, paired with a 9-volt battery, will start a fire for you. Cut the foil into a thin hourglass shape, touch both ends to the battery terminals, and the narrow middle part will glow red and catch almost right away.
It sounds like a magic trick, but it’s just basic electricity finding the path of most resistance. Toss a small battery in your kit and a candy wrapper turns into backup tinder.
Still, a wrapper and a battery won’t always be in your pocket when you need fire. Make sure you know these 4 ways to make a fire in any condition, even rain or snow. It’s better to have the knowledge and the skill than to find yourself in a spot where a gum wrapper was your only shot.
23. Plugging a Leaky Canteen
A tiny hole in your canteen or water bladder can drain you dry overnight without you noticing. Chew a piece until soft, then press it hard over the hole, and give it a few minutes to set.
Of course, it won’t hold up if you boil water in there, but it’ll get you to your next water source.
And while you’re patching gear, don’t skip the skill that actually gets you out alive. Check out the best ways to find your way in the wild without a GPS or a map.
22. Patching a Boot or a Pair of Waders
A small puncture in a rubber boot lets cold water soak your foot fast. Press gum into the gap and smooth it flat. It’ll hold you over until you can put a real patch on when you’re back at camp.
21. Holding Broken Glasses Together
Lost a screw out of your glasses with no hardware store for miles? A small ball of gum wedged into the hinge will hold the frame steady enough to see clearly. Not pretty, but losing your eyesight out there is a far bigger problem than looking a little silly.
20. Locking Down a Fishing Knot
A dab of chewed gum over your fishing knot adds a little extra grip so it won’t slip loose under the strain of a fighting fish. When SHTF, that fish might be your dinner.
19. Quick Earplugs
Roll two small balls and you’ve got earplugs. Good for blocking loud engine noise, or keeping bugs from crawling into your ears while you sleep on the ground. Be careful not to push them too deep and make sure you form large enough balls.
18. Sealing Up a Match Case
Run a thin line of soft gum around the seam of a homemade match container and you’ve sealed out the moisture that would otherwise ruin your matches.
17. Quieting Rattling Gear
A loose buckle or a rattling zipper pull can give you away if you’re trying to move quiet. Stuff a little gum into the gap and the noise stops.
➡️ How to Fix a Stuck Zipper (Takes Less Than a Minute)
16. A Stand-In Button
Lost a button in the freezing cold? Push a wad of gum through the buttonhole and flatten it on both sides. It’ll hold your coat shut until you can sew it right.
15. Bait for Small Traps
The sugar in flavored gum draws in squirrels, chipmunks, and other small game worth eating, which makes it decent bait for a snare when you don’t have anything better on hand.
Catching something is only half the job. The real trick is making it last without power or a fridge. There’s a forgotten way to turn small game into a sausage that keeps for months, no refrigeration needed, and it’s simpler than you’d think.
Watch the video below to how to make the “forever sausage”:
14. Keeping Your Mouth From Going Dry
Chewing gum gets your mouth watering again, and while it won’t hydrate you, it takes the edge off that awful dry-mouth feeling when water’s running low. Sometimes that little bit of relief is worth more than people give it credit for.
13. Staying Awake on Night Watch
Soldiers have chewed gum on long watches for this exact reason. The steady chewing and the flavor keep your brain a little more alert during those long, boring hours when falling asleep is the real danger.
12. Settling a Sick Stomach
Ginger gum especially can calm a queasy stomach during a rough drive out or a bumpy boat ride, when you don’t have medicine handy and you still need to keep moving.
Just in case you’re out in the wild and don’t have chewing gum on you, look for chamomile instead – it grows wild across most of the US, often in fields, along roadsides, and in disturbed soil. You could make this chamomile and lemon balm infusion, and you’ve got yourself one of the best remedies for an upset stomach.
11. A Backup Signal Mirror
Flatten out a gum wrapper and you’ve got a small shiny surface you can angle to catch sunlight and signal for help. Not as good as a real mirror, but it beats having nothing.
10. Marking Your Trail Back
Press a small piece onto the bark of a tree at eye level and you’ve got a marker that’s sticky and easy to spot, handy when you’re out of ribbon or tape.
09. Patching a Torn Map Case
A rip in your waterproof map sleeve is a real problem if rain’s coming. Smooth some gum over the tear and it’ll hold the seal until you’re back somewhere dry.
08. Tightening a Loose Knife Handle
If a wood or bone handle has come loose from the blade, wrap the gap with soft gum and some cord. It’ll snug the grip back up so the blade quits wobbling in your hand.
07. Plugging a Cracked Fuel Line
Mechanics going back to World War II have used gum to plug hairline cracks in a fuel line, just long enough to limp a vehicle back to base. It won’t hold under real pressure, but on a slow leak, it’s kept engines running when there was nothing else on hand.
06. Taking the Edge Off
There’s something about the simple act of chewing that calms people down. It’s part of why gum shows up in military kits and disaster supplies to this day. When things get tense, a small, familiar motion can help you slow down and think straight.
05. Backup Glue for Small Fixes
Got a zipper pull that keeps coming loose, or a strap fraying at the buckle? A pea-sized bit of chewed gum, pressed on and left to firm up, works as a rough glue substitute for small jobs that don’t need to hold much weight.
04. Sealing a Leaking Life Vest
A slow air leak in a life vest is a real problem out on the water. Gum won’t fix it for good, but pressed into the hole, it can slow the leak enough to get you to shore safe.
03. Cleaning Your Teeth in a Pinch
Mint gum won’t replace a toothbrush, but chewing it for a few minutes cuts down on the grime and bad breath after a few days out with no dental supplies.
While we are here, I’ve tried this amazing DIY toothpaste recipe and I would like to share it with you:
02. Keep Your Stress Under Control
You shouldn’t underestimate the role of mental health.
When things go wrong for real, your brain reaches for anything familiar it can hold onto, and something as small as unwrapping a piece of gum and chewing it can break up that rising panic. Search and rescue folks have seen it happen – a small, repeated action like that helps people slow their breathing and think clearly instead of freezing up.
Sounds too simple to matter, until you’re the one standing in the woods at dusk, and it’s the only thing in your pocket that reminds you of the “old days”.
01. One of the Most Underrated Barter Items
When things really fall apart, small items that never go bad and everybody wants become the new money faster than you’d think, and gum checks every box. It sits on a shelf for years, takes up almost no room in a bag, and after weeks of eating canned food, everybody from a six-year-old to a grown man wants a piece.
Real disaster zones and long-term hard times have shown the same thing over and over – small comfort items trade for more than their size would suggest. A case of gum tucked away in your supplies it’s a valuable bargaining chip.
This List Only Gets You So Far
Most of these won’t replace a real repair kit, and they shouldn’t have to. But gum weighs nothing, costs less than a candy bar, and quietly solves problems most folks never think to plan for. Small, cheap, easy to forget about until you need it.
Which is kind of how I stumbled onto Claude Davis’s new book too – a buddy posted about it on Facebook a few weeks back, almost as an afterthought. It’s called The Lost Skills of Independence and it feels like everything he’s picked up over the years finally landed in one place – 200 skills, each on its own flip-to card, no digging through pages to find the one you need.
There’s a battlefield powder from the Civil War that stops bleeding with two ingredients already in your backyard. A way to keep eggs eatable for ten years with no salt, no brine, no fridge. Even the trick to reading whether a stranger at your door means trouble before he says a word.
A stick of gum patches the small stuff. This is the book that answers the questions gum can’t – the ones you’d rather not learn the hard way, at the worst possible time, with your family watching.
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