Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: What did chewing gum used to be made out of?
Chewing gum in many forms has existed since the Neolithic period. 6,000-year-old chewing gum made from birch bark tar, with tooth imprints, has been found in Kierikki in Finland. The tar from which the gums were made is believed to have antiseptic properties and other medicinal benefits.[4] It is chemically similar to petroleum tar and is in this way different from most other early gum.[5][6] The Mayans and Aztecs were the first to exploit the positive properties of gum,[7] they used chicle, a natural tree gum, as a base for making a gum-like substance[8] and to stick objects together in everyday use. Forms of chewing gums were also chewed in Ancient Greece. The Ancient Greeks chewed mastic gum, made from the resin of the mastic tree.[9] Mastic gum, like birch bark tar, has antiseptic properties and is believed to have been used to maintain oral health.[10] Both chicle and mastic are tree resins. Many other cultures have chewed gum-like substances made from plants, grasses, and resins.
The cultural tradition of chewing gum seems to have developed through a convergent evolution process, as traces of this habit have arisen separately in many of the early civilizations. Each of the early precursors to chewing gum were derived from natural growths local to the region and were chewed purely out the instinctual desire to masticate. Early chewers did not necessarily desire to derive nutritional benefits from their chewable substances, but at times sought taste stimuli and teeth cleaning or breath-freshening capabilities.[3]
A review about the cognitive advantages of chewing gum by Onyper et al. (2011) found strong evidence of improvement for the following cognitive domains: working memory, episodic memory and speed of perception. However the improvements were only evident when chewing took place prior to cognitive testing. The precise mechanism by which gum chewing improves cognitive functioning is however not well understood. The researchers did also note that chewing-induced arousal could be masked by the distracting nature of chewing itself, which they named "dual-process theory", which in turn could explain some of the contradictory findings by previous studies. They also noticed the similarity between mild physical exercise such as pedaling a stationary bike and chewing gum. It has been demonstrated that mild physical exercise leads to little cognitive impairment during the physical task accompanied by enhanced cognitive functioning afterwards. Furthermore, the researchers noted that no improvement could be found for verbal fluency, which is in accordance with previous studies. This finding suggests that the effect of chewing gum is domain specific. The cognitive improvements after a period of chewing gum have been demonstrated to last for 15–20 minutes and decline afterwards.[34]
Gum chewing is regarded as a helpful way to cure halitosis (bad breath). Chewing gum not only helps to add freshness to breath but can aid in removing food particles and bacteria associated with bad breath from teeth. It does this by stimulating saliva, which essentially washes out the mouth. Chewing sugar-free gum for 20 minutes after a meal helps prevent tooth decay, according to the American Dental Association, because the act of chewing the sugar-free gum produces saliva to wash away bacteria, which protects teeth.[45] Chewing gum after a meal replaces brushing and flossing, if that's not possible, to prevent tooth decay and increase saliva production.[46] Chewing gum can also help with the lack of saliva or xerostomia since it naturally stimulates saliva production.[17] Saliva is made of chemicals, such as organic molecules, inorganic ions and macromolecules. 0.5% of saliva deals with dental health, since tooth enamel is made of calcium phosphate, those inorganic ions in saliva help repair the teeth and keep them in good condition. The pH of saliva is neutral, which having a pH of 7 allows it to remineralize tooth enamel. Falling below a pH of 5.5 (which is acidic) causes the saliva to demineralize the teeth.[17]
Controversy arises as to health concerns surrounding the questionable classification of gum as food, particularly in regard to some alternative uses for gum base ingredients. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), chewing gum is considered a food, as the term “food” means “a raw, cooked, or processed edible substance, ice, beverage, or ingredient used or intended for use or for sale in whole or in part for human consumption, or chewing gum”.[53] Chewing gum is defined as a food of minimal nutritional value.[54] However, many of the ingredients in gum base have uses in inedible products, which raises concern in some consumers. Polyethylene, one of the most popular components of gum base, belongs to a common group of plastics and is used in products from plastic bags to hula hoops. Polyvinyl acetate is a sticky polymer found in white glue. Butyl rubber is typically used in caulking and the lining of car tires, in addition to its role in gum base. Paraffin wax is a byproduct of refined petroleum.[55]
Rowe's sculptures often took the form of dolls or bust-like figures, made out of old stockings or hardened chewing gum. Rowe adorned her dolls, made out of old stockings, with elaborate outfits and yarn wigs and glasses. For her chewing gum sculptures, she would knead used chewing gum into small figures, harden them in her freezer and then paint them with colorfully bright details.
Curtis and his father's firm, "Curtis & Son," eventually increased the business to occupy a factory that was 51 x in area and three stories high. They employed 200 people, who turned out eighteen hundred boxes of chewing gum in a day. Curtis himself invented most of the machinery used in the production process. He never took out a patent on any of his inventions. The firm instead kept secret their process of making chewing gum. Some of the spruce gums Curtis & Son made were called "American Flag," "Yankee Spruce," "White Mountain," "200 Lump Spruce," "Licorice Lulu," "Trunk Spruce", "Sugar Cream," "Four-in-Hand," and "Biggest and Best."
In 1928, Walter Diemer, an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia, was experimenting with new gum recipes. One recipe, based on a formula for a chewing gum called "Blibber Blubber", was found to be less sticky than regular chewing gum, and stretched more easily. It was a dingy grey color, so Diemer added red dye (diluted to pink), that being what he had on hand at the time. This gum became highly successful and was eventually named by the president of Fleer as Dubble Bubble because of its stretchy texture. The original bubble gum was pink in color because that was the dye that Diemer had most on hand at the time.
Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance intended for chewing but not swallowing. Humans have used chewing gum for at least 3,000 years. In Singapore importing chewing gum is a criminal offence. The exception is made for dental or nicotine gum, which is available from dentists and pharmacies.
Toy was created in 1930 by Marabou. In the 1960s and 1970s the chewing gum was an enormously popular in both Sweden and Norway and 600 - 700 tonnes of chewing gum were sold every year. Production was later taken over by Malaco who moved the manufacturing to Denmark. During the 1990s a few hundred tons of chewing gum per year was made, but in 1998 the production was discontinued due to increased competition, mainly from sugar free chewing gums. The launch of sugar free Toy failed. For the 70th anniversary in 2004 a special edition batch of 700 000 packs were sold for a short period of time. Years later, it became regularly available again.
A chewing gum bug is a practical joke gag used to play tricks on people, usually adults. The appearance is of a 5-pack of chewing gum, with one stick of gum remaining. The trick works when the prankster tricks the victim into pulling out the last stick of gum. A small rubber bug, (folded back to fit in the pack), springs out and smacks the victim on the finger he or she used to hold the fake stick of chewing gum. It does not hurt or injure the victim, though it can potentially annoy the victim. Some variants deliver a mild electric shock, or set off a cap. After a person touches the chewing gum bug, he also may report a "tingly feeling" similar to pins and needles.
Adams conceived the idea while working as a secretary to former Mexican leader Antonio López de Santa Anna, who chewed a natural gum called chicle. Adams first tried to formulate the gum into a rubber suitable for tires. When that didn't work, he made the chicle into a chewing gum called Chiclets, which is still produced today.
The polymers that make up the main component of chewing gum base are hydrophobic.[2] This property is essential because it allows for retention of physical properties throughout the mastication process. Because the polymers of gum repel water, the water-based saliva system in a consumer’s mouth will dissolve the sugars and flavorings in chewing gum, but not the gum base itself. This allows for gum to be chewed for a long period of time without breaking down in the mouth like conventional foods. Chewing gum can be classified as a product containing a liquid phase and a crystalline phase, providing gum with its characteristic balance of plastic and elastic properties.[1]
Fleer Chewing Gum Company, in Philadelphia, had been searching for years to produce a formula that allowed bubbles to be blown that did not stick. In 1928, while Walter Diemer was testing new gum recipes, he noticed that his product was less sticky than regular chewing gum, and after testing it he found that he could create bubbles easily. After a year of attempts, he made the first successful batch of bubble gum. But the next morning when trying to recreate his successful concoction, he failed to reproduce the same results. After four months of trying to mimic his first success, he finally made a 300-pound batch of what would become Dubble Bubble. The only food coloring available at the factory was pink, so Diemer had no choice but to use it, and the color would go on to become the standard for gum for the world over. Using a salt water taffy wrapping machine, Diemer decided to individually wrap 100 pieces and brought the stock to a local candy store. The gum was priced at one penny apiece and sold out in one day. Before long, the Fleer Chewing Gum Company began making bubble gum using Diemer’s recipe, and the gum was marketed as “Dubble Bubble” gum. Diemer’s bubble gum was the first-ever commercially sold bubble gum, and its sales surpassed 1.5 million dollars in the first year. To help sell the new bubble gum, Diemer himself taught salespeople how to blow bubbles so that they in turn could teach potential customers.
In 2018, the BBC published a news article on British designer Anna Bullus, who created a method of collecting and recycling chewing gum into plastic, noting that litter from chewing gum is the second most common form of litter, second only to cigarette litter. She uses a Worcester recycling plant to make old chewing gum into plastic. She then uses that plastic at a plastic moulding specialist, Amber Valley, in Leicester to make plastic objects. Known objects made are collection containers for more chewing gum, shoe soles, rubber boots, and plastic cups. [68] Her company advertises itself as the "first company in the world to recycle and process chewing gum into a range of new compounds that can be used in the rubber and plastics industry". The company is called Gum-tec, and the collection containers are dubbed "gumdrops". Advertised products on the website are pencils, coffee mugs, guitar picks, a "bicycle spoke", rulers, sports cones, frisbees, boomerangs, door stops, "meal mates", lunch-boxes, and combs. [69]
In 1892, Wrigley Jr. began packaging chewing gum with each can of baking powder. The chewing gum eventually became more popular than the baking powder and Wrigley's reoriented the company to produce the gum. Wrigley's gum was traditionally made out of chicle, which was sourced largely from Latin America. In 1952, in response to land reforms attempting to end feudal working conditions for peasant farmers, Wrigley's discontinued purchasing chicle from Guatemala. In the 1960s, Wrigley's changed the composition of its chewing gum from using chicle to synthetic rubber, which was cheaper to manufacturer.
Gum base is made of polymers, plasticizers, and resins. Polymers, including elastomers, are responsible for the stretchy and sticky nature of chewing gum. Plasticizers improve flexibility and reduce brittleness, contributing to the plastic and elastic nature of gum. The interactions of plasticizers within gum base are governed by solubility parameters, molecular weight, and chemical structure. Resins compose the hydrophobic portion of the gum base, responsible for its chewiness. Although the exact ingredients and proportions used in each brand's gum base are trade secrets within the gum industry, Table 3 lists all of the natural and synthetic gum base components approved for use in the United States, demonstrating some examples of key gum base components.[2]
The first flavored chewing gum was created in the 1860s by John Colgan, a Louisville, Kentucky pharmacist. Colgan mixed with powdered sugar the aromatic flavoring tolu, a powder obtained from an extract of the balsam tree (Myroxylon), creating small sticks of flavored chewing gum he named "Taffy Tolu".[14] Colgan also lead the way in the manufacturing and packaging of chicle-based chewing gum, derived from Manilkara chicle, a tropical evergreen tree. He licensed a patent for automatically cutting chips of chewing gum from larger sticks: US 966,160 "Chewing Gum Chip Forming Machine" August 2, 1910[15] and a patent for automatically cutting wrappers for sticks of chewing gum: US 913,352 "Web-cutting attachment for wrapping-machines" February 23, 1909[16] from Louisville, Kentucky inventor James Henry Brady, an employee of the Colgan Gum Company.
Modern chewing gum was first developed in the 1860s when chicle was brought from Mexico by the former President, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, to New York, where he gave it to Thomas Adams for use as a rubber substitute. Chicle did not succeed as a replacement for rubber, but as a gum, which was cut into strips and marketed as Adams New York Chewing Gum in 1871.[17][18] Black Jack (1884), which is flavored with licorice, Chiclets (1899), and Wrigley's Spearmint Gum were early popular gums that quickly dominated the market and are all still around today.[3] Chewing gum gained worldwide popularity through American GIs in WWII, who were supplied chewing gum as a ration and traded it with locals. Synthetic gums were first introduced to the U.S. after chicle no longer satisfied the needs of making good chewing gum.[3] By the 1960s, US manufacturers had switched to butadiene-based synthetic rubber, as it was cheaper to manufacture.
Clark's chewing gum spinoff, renamed Clark Gum Company, was sold in 1931 to Philip Morris, who held it until 1973, when they sold the rights to Clark Gum to Reed's Candy, an HP Hood subsidiary. They would have the gum made through a cooperative arrangement with Amurol, a Wrigley Gum subsidiary. Reed's Candy was sold to Amurol in 1989, but the deal did not include the gum, retained by a newly-rechristened Clark Gum Company. Clark's Teaberry gum is currently marketed by First Source, LLC in Buffalo, New York, and made in Mexico.
This is a list of chewing gum brands. Chewing gum is a type of gum made for chewing, and dates back at least 5,000 years. Modern chewing gum was originally made of chicle, a natural latex. By the 1960s, chicle was replaced by butadiene-based synthetic rubber which is cheaper to manufacture. Most chewing gums are considered polymers.
Flavor delivery is extended throughout the mastication process by timed release of different flavor components due to the physical-chemical properties of many of chewing gum’s ingredients. Entropy is a key player in the process of flavor delivery; because some gum components are more soluble in saliva than gum base and because over time flavor components desire to increase their entropy by becoming dispersed in the less ordered system of the mouth than in the more ordered system of the gum bolus, flavor delivery occurs. During the first three to four minutes of the chew, bulking agents such as sugar or sorbitol and maltitol have the highest solubility and, therefore, are chewed out first. As these components dissolve in the consumers’ saliva and slide down the esophagus, they are no longer retained in the gum base or perceived by the chewer. During the next phase of the chew in the four to six minute range, intense sweeteners and some acids are dissolved and chewed out. These components last slightly longer than the bulking agents because they have a slightly lower solubility. Next, encapsulated flavors are released during either 10-15 minute into the chew or after 30–45 minutes. Encapsulated flavors remain incorporated in the gum base longer because the molecules that they are encapsulated in are more easily held within the gum matrix. Finally, during the last phase of the chew, softeners such as corn syrup and glycerin and other textural modifiers are dissolved, resulting in a firming up of the gum and the end of the chew.[22]
Functional chewing gum is the name given to types of chewing gum which impart some practical function instead of, or in addition to, the usual enjoyment provided by a traditional chewing gum as a confectionery product. Examples of this include nicotine gum which is used to aid smoking cessation & so-called Think Gum which designers say they believe may enhance mental functioning. It could be argued that most gum (at least the mint varieties) provides some function in that they can improve bad breath, but such an effect is so widespread that the term 'functional' is almost always applied to gum with some additional function. Medical uses for 'functional chewing gum' include a reported reduction in the duration of post-operative ileus following abdominal and specifically gastrointestinal surgery.
Chewing gum is rather shelf stable because of its non-reactive nature and low moisture content. The water activity of chewing gum ranges from 0.40 to 0.65.[30] The moisture content of chewing gum ranges from three to six percent.[30] In fact, chewing gum retains its quality for so long that, in most countries, it is not required by law to be labeled with an expiration date.[31] If chewing gum remains in a stable environment, over time the gum may become brittle or lose some of its flavor, but it will never be unsafe to eat.[31] If chewing gum is exposed to moisture, over time water migration may occur, making the gum soggy. In lollipops with a gum center, water migration can lead to the end of the product’s shelf life, causing the exterior hard candy shell to soften and the interior gum center to harden.
Although chewing gum can be traced back to civilizations around the world, the modernization and commercialization of this product mainly took place in the United States. The American Indians chewed resin made from the sap of spruce trees.[11] The New England settlers picked up this practice, and in 1848, John B. Curtis developed and sold the first commercial chewing gum called The State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum. In this way, the industrializing West, having forgotten about tree gums, rediscovered chewing gum through the First Americans. Around 1850 a gum made from paraffin wax, which is a petroleum product, was developed and soon exceeded the spruce gum in popularity. To sweeten these early gums, the chewer would often make use of a plate of powdered sugar, which they would repeatedly dip the gum into to maintain sweetness.[12] William Semple filed an early patent on chewing gum, patent number 98,304, on December 28, 1869.[13]