Well now, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I apologize for that. But we’re back! And with a review of a junk food genre I haven’t written about thus far!

“Mystery flavor” food items are always a fun gimmick. Off the top of my head, the only mystery flavor junk foods that have come out are the Airheads “White Mystery”, which, if I recall correctly, came out sometime in the early 90s, and, of course, Doritos’ Quest and X-13D, which were Mountain Dew and hamburger flavored, respectively. However, Google’s delightful autofill dropdown feature also reminds me that there’s another other mystery flavored junk food: Dum Dums, which have a mystery flavor for an interesting and utilitarian reason. Writing this website has given me access to countless pieces of information that I will never actually need to know, until I watch an episode of Jeopardy that contains a junk food category. I will kick ass when that happens.

The newest mystery flavor on the block is Stride’s Mega Mystery Gum. Stride is one of the newer kids on the block when it comes to chewing gum; the brand launched in 2006, going up against heavy-hitters like Trident, Extra and Juicy Fruit, which have been well-known for decades. Stride’s marketing slogan, “The Ridiculously Long-Lasting Gum”, seems to have met with success, as the brand has done quite well since it was launched. I’m sure you’re all familiar with their commercials, wherein Stride executives beg you to spit out your damn gum and chew another piece already, or where people chewing the gum are tackled violently in order to get them to expel the gum. It’s a clever marketing campaign, I have to admit, and their commercial for Mega Mystery follows in the same vein. Some guy is webcamming, or vlogging, or whatever the fuck, that he knows what the mystery flavor of Mega Mystery is. Suddenly, three men wearing suits and helmets, riding ostriches, burst through the walls, ransacking the guy’s room. An ostrich pecks the terrified nerd in the chest on command, and its rider hisses at him to “zip it”. You can view the commercial on Stride’s website.

I have absolutely no idea when they are actually going to reveal what the mystery flavor is, but I’ll be sure to let you know when they finally announce it. I asked Google, but I didn’t find anything, and all the links were too spoiler-y on how the gum tastes. I need a clean palate for this. No outside influences.

I’ve never bought Stride gum before, but the package design is ingenious. Of course, all gum brands with this kind of packaging could have been doing this for forever. I haven’t bought or chewed gum in like, a decade. Anyway, the idea is, once you finish the lower section of the pack, the perforation on the seam allows you to tear that part away, and a little slit on the lower part of the top pack let’s you still close it, making for a smaller, more pocket-friendly pack. Ingenious!  Those pieces are really stuck in there, too. No chance of them falling out. You can’t tell in the picture, but I actually had to rip the wrapper to get a piece out. Speaking of the wrapper, how cute is that? I feel like I own a piece of The Riddler. Or, better yet, Matthew Lesko.

The gum itself is white, which is standard issue for any mystery food. Wouldn’t want to give it away by coloring it pink or anything, like…hundreds of other gums of wildly varying flavors.

So, what is the goddamn mystery flavor already, you ask? I hesitate to answer. I’m not afraid of being wrong, but getting the flavor totally and completely wrong would be pretty embarrassing. Since this website is all about reviewing food and analyzing flavors and all that.  It’s obviously fruity, you can tell that just by smelling the box. I think I can detect some watermelon. It’s gotta be a combination of fruits, but it’s not as easy as you’d think, trying to tell one artificial fruit flavor from another, when you’ve got absolutely no frame of reference. Taking a wild stab, I’d guess strawberry-watermelon, but that’s not exactly the most exciting flavor combination for a mystery flavor. I feel like a mystery flavor should be something totally unexpected. Mystery flavors should BLOW MY MIND. Does Stride feel that way, though? I’m getting paranoid over gum. This is my life.

I guess I’ll stick with my strawberry-watermelon conclusion. Or maybe just strawberry-melon. Berry-melon? I’m trying to be as broad as possible to save face, in case you haven’t noticed. Regardless, we’ll find out whenever Stride reveals the flavor, sometime in the nebulous future. No matter what it is, mystery aside, it’s a pretty sold flavor for a chewing gum. Like I said, I haven’t chewed gum for years, but I’m pretty sure “generically fruity” is hard to screw up. And I got to blow bubbles, so how bad can it be? Oh, and it is sugarless, for those of you concerned about your teeth rotting out of your head. Suck down a Diet Coke, chew some Mega Mystery gum, and enjoy the aspartame!

• Score: 3 out of 5 guys in suits riding ostriches
• Price: $1.39
• Size: 1 pack of 14 sticks of gum
• Purchased at: Circle K #2821
• Nutritional Quirks: The back of the pack says “Calorie content of this size piece has been reduced from 5 to 3 1/2 calories.  In the nutrition facts area, the calories are listed as <5.  That’s…odd.