Sometimes I forget that Life Savers were originally intended as a health product. But all it takes is a scan through the first couple of decades of Life Savers ads to see the score: Life Savers were a product of their (unregulated!) time. They were sold at pharmacies. They often included the herbal ingredients/ remedies already being sold there. In a time with quack remedies and little government oversight, anything goes.
Mint Products Inc., Ed Noble's company, advertised...
- Life Savers as an aid to digestion
- (1927 ad "I Said Goodbye to Indigestion")
- "There's no doubt about it... the Literary Society liked its food about as well as its Shakespeare. And after those get-together banquets, the members were more in need of a two-mile walk than a two-hour speech. What agony could have been averted. what fidgeting, squirming and groaning could have been banished had Life Savers been passed around after the meal! It's really amazing how Life Savers aid digestion. Deflate that over-stuffed feeling. Refuse to let your over-indulgences plague you. Snap you back to normal even after a dining marathon."- Retrieved from https://images.app.goo.gl/FTqoEh5wdgc8D1vn7
- Life Savers for halitosis (scroll to ad titled "Behind his back they called him Hal[itosis]")
- Life Savers for cough
- 1931 ad notes "A soothing blend of menthol, horehound, and eucalyptus."
- 1932 ad "Cough Relief in a Minute. Take it. Time it. Test it. Prove it." uses the scientific method for proof.
- Life Savers for energy - "loaded with energy and flavor"
- Life Savers as a bedtime treat to get children to sleep - 1930, with a letter including "my doctor told me" about Life Savers' purity" https://images.app.goo.gl/hrhDzvuvGFnW9tpb9
- Life Savers, "a pure candy for healthy children" is a slogan on a toy truck
- "Life Savers Fruit Juicers played on a trend of the times- adding 10 percent fruit juice to everything in the grocery store. Moms felt better giving their children candy with real fruit juice..." Cheryl Bachelder, Dare to Serve (2015).
- Life Savers for weight loss - You have to read this 1933 ad in full, by Mdm. Sylvia, the "World's foremost authority on the care of the feminine figure."
- Life Savers Aids for acid relief- the pink Life Saver. It was advertised as "DOUBLE ACTION RELIEF, 1. Quickly neutralizes excess acid to restore stomach balance. 2. Buffers the stomach against over-alkalizing." (Liebig)
EXCLUSIVE ACTIVE BUFFERING INGREDIENT: TETRAHYDROXY DIALUMINUM MAGNESIUM CARBONATE (TDMC)
Photo of the roll: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonliebigstuff/3367430820
Photo of the ad: link
It was not until 16 years later that the disease "acquired immunodeficiency syndrome" (AIDS) was named.
- Breath Savers™️ for breath - scroll to 2024_03_22 at this link
The Food and Drug Administration (2024) notes
"The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 (NLEA) directed FDA to issue regulations providing for the use of health claims. All health claims must undergo review by the FDA through a petition process.
"Health claims:
-
- must contain the elements of a substance and a disease or health-related conditions
- are limited to claims about disease risk reduction;
- cannot be claims about the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, or treatment of disease; and
- are required to be reviewed and evaluated by FDA prior to use."
As recently as 2002 (Sagepub), Wake Forest students researched the viability of Life Savers cough drops for Planters Life Savers, a nearby Winston-Salem company. They were testing the marketability of "new attribute expansions, in which an entirely new attribute or characteristic is added to the product (e.g., cough relief liquid added to Life Savers candy)".
Of course, in some ways, that's amusing--such a feature wouldn't be new at all for Life Savers, which sold cough drops back in the 1930s.
Sources
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1509/jmkg.66.1.73.18450?icid=int.sj-abstract.citing-articles.10
Life Savers™️ is a trademarked name currently owned in the US by Mars Wrigley Confectionery, having been owned and/or licensed by many previous companies, varying by country.
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