Chewing Gum -- "Remember The Alamo!"

We all undoubtedly have some experience with the topic of today's lesson, that familiar, chewy substance taking on all manner of flavors and shapes. But have you ever stopped to consider what exactly you're chewing? Or it's history? Or what relation it might just have to the Battle of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution? As for what gum is made of, in today's markets you're most likely to be chewing a synthetic form of rubber called polyisobutylene, mixed with sweeteners (sugar or sugar-alcohols such as sorbitol and xylitol) and added flavorings and colorants. Polyisobutylene also happens to be closely related to the same rubber used to make inner tubes and some types of tires.

The chewing substance of choice has not always been quite so synthetic. Since the dawn of time, people have been chewing on leaves and saps of various plants worldwide. Beeswax has been a popular choice even in modern times, often with whole chunks of honeycomb and the contained honey as a natural sweetener. The ancient Greeks chewed the gummy sap of the mastic shrub (Pistacia lentiscus, a member of the pistachio family) on the island of Chios. The popularity of chewing this resin has given rise to the English roots of many chewing words (to masticate is to chew). When colonists first arrived in New England, the Native Americans present introduced them to the chewing the sap of the local spruce trees, which became much a popular use of a by-product of spruce forestry for newspaper pulp. Paraffin wax (the same petroleum-based material most candles were being made of) also held popularity amongst chewing fans.

However, if you were to pop any one of these chewing substances into your mouth today, you would notice a radical difference in texture and consistency from modern gum. The dawn of today's chewing materials is due in part to the infamous Mexican General Santa Ana, of Battle of the Alamo renown, who was at the time sitting in New York in exile. In 1869, Santa Ana introduced inventor Thomas Adams to the sap of the Central American Sapodilla tree (Manilkara chicle) tapped into by cutting zig-zag gashes across the bark---a popular chew of Mexicans. Thomas Adams promptly purchased a great deal of this sap, called Chicle (from the Nahuatl word meaning "sticky stuff"), in hopes of finding a way to create a new form of rubber. After many failed experiments, Adams chewed on a piece of his supply, and immediately soon after opened up the world's first chewing-gum factory.

After noting the popularity of his pure chicle gum, Adams developed a black licorice flavored variety called Blackjack, which also set the stage as the first stick gum (previously gum was sold in chunks). The flavor, however, would not be retained long in the gum--a problem which would be solved six years later with the addition of sugar and corn syrup by William White. Adams later went on to produce Tutti-Frutti, the first gum to be sold by vending machines.

A name that comes to mind when discussing gum is that of William Wrigley, Jr., who started shop as a soap merchant in 1891. As a terrific salesman, Wrigley used an incentive of giving away free baking powder with soap purchases. When baking powder became more popular than the soap, he opened up a baking powder only business, with free sticks of chewing gum alongside each can of powder. Again, chewing gum's popularity won out over baking powder, and Wrigley decided to change products again. Juicy Fruit became the first of Wrigley's lines, becoming now the number one fruit gum in the US and the top choice of any gum amongst children. A few months later, the similarly successful Spearmint flavor made its debut. Since then, the Wrigley company has grown to be one of the largest chewing gum companies worldwide, providing countless varieties and flavors. In 1974, a 10-pack of Juicy Fruit became the first item to be wrung up by scanning a UPC bar-code label, a practice now universal in shopping.

From the great popularity of chewing gum, myriad offshoots have spawned, with gum in the form of balls, pastes, candy-coated tablets, and within lollipops. Amongst the variation, bubble gum deserves an honorable mention. After some failed early attempts to make a stronger, less sticky gum variety, an accountant at the Fleer Chewing Gum Company by the name of Walter Diemar enjoyed experimenting with new gum recipes on his own time. By an accident in 1928, he created a more stretchy and less sticky gum, which he colored pink as it was the only colorant on hand in the factory. The Fleer Company soon began marketing his invention, thus giving birth to Double Bubble. Sugar-free gums sweetened with xylitol have found a great deal of popularity, and have even been shown to increase dental hygiene and reduce cavities and plaque. "Functional" gums also exist as smoking-cessation aids containing cessation, "dental gums" including toothpaste compounds, and caffeinated gum that has found a place within some military MREs.

Chew on.

Words of the Day!
"Spoilate" : to rob, plunder, or despoil
"Spiv" : a man who lives my his wits, without doing any regular or
honest work, esp. one engaged in petty, shady dealings