Mexico City says do what mom told us not to

Mexico City wants you to do what your mom told you not to - swallow your gum.

The country that gave the world chewing gum is getting gummed up: The average square yard (meter) of Mexico City sidewalk has 70 blobs of discarded chew.

Now Mexico is responding with innovations ranging from expensive sidewalk steam-cleaners to natural chewing gum that breaks down quickly. It's even telling its citizens (gulp!) to swallow their gum.

When you finish chewing a piece of gum in Mexico City, you either have to put in a piece of paper and deposit it in a trash receptacle or swallow it.

Doctors say not so fast - swallowing gum isn’t good says a pediatrician at the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville.

It usually passes through the digestive system, but can ball up with other objects and cause an intestinal blockage.

The sticky problem involves the long-lasting, synthetic chewing gum base used since the 1940s to replace the latex-like chicle resin that ancient Mayans had long collected from the Sapodilla tree. The Mayans chewed unflavored chicle to clean their teeth.

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