When was stick gum invented

Such gums were sweet but not chewy enough. For the right level of chewiness, gum makers turned to an old favorite: tree sap. The Mayans' tsictle-called "chicle" in the U. Chicle's victory in the U. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, of Alamo fame. Credited with bringing chicle to the U. Rubber, from the Para rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis , was growing into its own booming business involving everything from tubes to tires, and the general had hoped chicle could muscle in on some of the markets.

Using chicle from Santa Anna's stash, another American inventor, Thomas Adams, proved chicle was no substitute for rubber. However, Adams and his sons found that heating chicle with sugar and flavor yielded a gum superior to paraffin-based predecessors.

Americans were soon chewing Blackjack, the first flavored gum. Blackjack gum consisted of three major ingredients: gum base, sugar, and licorice flavoring. Gum's basic recipe??? It is used by modern manufacturers including Cadbury Adams as Adams' company is now known and Wrigley , among others.

Although the recipe has not changed, the base has. Like spruce sap and paraffin before it, even the sapodilla-derived chicle was fated for replacement. It was World War II that did it in. Widespread trading of gum rations by U. The tree's sap is collected by workers who climb the trees and use machetes to tap the sap, she says. A single tapping yields only 2. Chemistry came to the rescue, and since WWII gum manufacturers have relied almost exclusively on synthetic gum bases.

What exactly are these synthetic bases made of? Here is where things get sticky. Each type of gum, from those best suited to simply chew or those designed for blowing huge bubbles, requires a slightly different base. Traditional chewing gums use poly styrene-co-butadiene or poly ethylene-co-vinylacetate as the gum base material. However, the properties of these materials mean that they stick to surfaces readily and are tricky to remove, even with detergents.

The new gum, called Rev7, overcomes this because it also contains a new amphiphilic comb copolymer made up of a polyisoprene backbone and grafts of poly ethylene oxide PEO. There should be no environmental risks since the polymer is made up of two ingredients that are used widely in other consumer products, including adhesives and medicines.

The remaining ingredients are either inert or natural. Safety tests revealed that the Rev7 polymer is as safe and inert as any other gum polymers for human consumption. Juicy Fruit gum came next in , and Wrigley's Spearmint was introduced later that same year. By the early s, with all aspects of manufacturing, packaging and marketing modern chewing gum was well on its way to its current popularity.

Gum with chicle soon got favor of spruce gum and paraffin gum, and it held flavors longer and better. In William Wrigley and Henry Fleer added mint and fruit extracts to a chewing gum with chicle. The Wrigley Company was rapidly becoming an international success. Wrigley brands became known the world over. The first factories were established in United States and soon. In , an accountant for the Fleer gum company Walter Diemer attempted to make a new rubber product, but he accidentally founded bubble gum, that was not sticky.

He called it Double Bubble. Double Bubble this gum was based on original Frank Fleer formula. In , the Topps Company reinvented the popularity of bubble gum by adding baseball cards to a package, replacing their previous gift of a single cigarette.

Children and parents loved this. In the 's, as consumers became more health conscious, Sugarless gum was introduced. Yet it is by no means an American invention.

Humanity's taste for chewing gum goes back to prehistoric times: archaeologists have discovered chunks of tree resin and tar-like deposits bearing tooth marks and other signs of chewing in mesolithic remains.

The earliest gums came from simply cutting trees and letting the sap ooze out; some had just the right characteristics to chew on indefinitely. The ancient Greeks chewed resin from the mastic tree of Turkey and Greece hence "mastication" - a word rooted in Greek. It was also used as a simple glue; Otze, the "ice man" discovered frozen in a glacier in , had birch bark tar holding his axe together. And that is a clue to the place that chewing gum holds in our psyche.

In the s, one of the first scientific studies relating to our liking for chewing things - anything - suggested that it helps to release muscle tension. Chewing gum was issued to American soldiers, and still is, to help them stay alert. A study found chewing gum helped people to recall random words.

Indeed, the gum-chewing American has become a stereotype; the tourist, the soldier, the threatening mobster, but above all someone from over there. In post-war Britain, teenagers aspiring to be cool wanted to emulate their American film icons; and as often as not that meant chewing gum and looking indifferent.

That was especially true when it was thought gum was awful stuff that would twine itself around your insides if you swallowed it, and rot your teeth. The more parents told their children this, the more the children loved it.

But all that may be changing now that chewing gum comes with a scientific seal of approval. A study in found chewing sugar-free gum regularly helps to reduce tooth decay. The reason: it stimulates the production of saliva, which helps to wash away the bacteria that would otherwise settle on our teeth and, helped by sugars, produce acid that rots them.

Another study in found that if you chew for long enough, then even sugared gum will have the same effect. Not only that; it's perfectly safe to swallow chewing gum: it will pass through your digestive system virtually untouched.