What "food" product do Americans spend 2.7 billion dollars on per year? Gum! This week on Let's Get Real, Erica Wides is crusading against gum. It doesn't provide nourishment, and it's filled with toxic chemicals; why are we so drawn to gum? Find out how gum has evolved in our society from being a treat to a performance enhancer. Hear about the social history of gum, and how the stigma of chewing gum has dissolved. Performance-enhancing gum cannot hydrate an athlete, and caffeine-infused gum cannot replace sleep! Learn more about the twitsted marketing of gum on this week's episode of Let's Get Real! Thanks to our sponsor, Cain Vineyard & Winery.

"Gum makes you hungrier because it stimulates your salivary glands and tells your brain that food is coming!" [8:05]

-- Erica Wides on Let's Get Real

We are programmed to enjoy sweets from birth, but how far do we have to go before crossing the line of sugar sanity? In today's world of foodiness, white lines of refined sugar and artificial sweeteners surround us and the only way to escape is by getting clean. Eat grapes not grape fruit snacks! Drink seltzer and juice, not soda! Kick the habit and reclaim your health - most people lose weight after cutting sugar from their diets! This program was brought to you by Jones Family Farms.

"Per-capita consumption of caloric sweeteners increased 43 pounds (39%) between 1959 and 2000"

--Erica Wides on Let's Get Real

How can Erica Wides afford two places to live? She doesn't drink bottled water, or any other bottled beverages for that matter. Let's Get Real is here to pull you out of that rabbit hole of foodiness, or in this case, drinkiness, that has been perpetuated by beverages that claim to make you smarter, faster, or are 'enhanced' with electrolytes and exotic flavors like 'dragonfruit'. All of this, says Wides, is BS. Tune in for a debunking of drinks such as Gatorade, Neuro, Arizona Green Tea and bottled water like Dasani (it's actually just tap water from Atlanta!), all of which waste your body's resources as well as the environment's. So before reach for that next Vitamin Water at the gas station fridge, listen up and get real about hydration. This episode is sponsored by Fairway Market.