What is Chewing Gum Made of?
If you live in the country, you may have chewed on the little balls of spruce gum which drop off the white or black spruce or balsam fir trees. The gum which comes in packages, however, is really a substance called chicle. This is the milky juice (latex) of a hardwood tree called zapota which grows in the American tropics, especially in Mexico, British Honduras and Guatemala.
The latex is collected by tapping the trunk, very much as rubber is collected. Deep zigzag cuts are made in the trunk up to a height of thirty feet, and the thick latex oozes out and runs slowly down into a pan placed at the foot of the tree. The flow lasts about two hours and many quarts may be collected at one time. After the raw gum has been boiled in large kettles, it is poured out on greased canvas and molded into inarquettas or blocks weighing about twenty-five pounds. The gum is packed into bales of four blocks each for shipping.
To be manufactured into chewing gum, the grayish-brown blocks are re-melted, impurities are removed and sugar and flavoring are added. The finished product is then molded and wrapped into the familiar packages. Millions of people in the United States have the habit of chewing gum - far more than in any other country. Almost $70,000,000 worth of gum is made each year.
