When you pop a piece of gum
into your mouth, you’re more likely to be concerned with its
taste and bubble capabilities than with its history. But if you
were to wonder about the origins of your gum, you’d have a lot
more to chew on. The story behind chewing gum is a flavorful
one, complete with an unlikely partnership between a famous
Mexican general and an American inventor, wild get-rich-quick
schemes, and the mastication habits of a lost civilization.
To trace the custom of
chewing for pleasure to its source, we must look to the ancient
Maya people of Central America. Originating in the Yucatan
around 2600 B.C.E., they rose to prominence around 250 C.E. in
the area now known as southern Mexico, Guatemala, western
Honduras, El Salvador, and northern Belize. Building on the
inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations like the
Olmec, the Maya developed astronomy, an intricate calendar, and
hieroglyphic writing.
The Maya were also noted for
elaborate and highly decorated ceremonial architecture,
including temple-pyramids, palaces, and observatories, all built
without metal tools or use of the wheel. They were expert
weavers and potters, and to hawk their wares they cleared routes
through jungles and swamps, fostering extensive trade networks
with distant peoples in the process. The Maya were equally
skilled farmers, clearing large sections of tropical rain forest
to plant food crops like corn, beans, and squash, as well as
hemp, cotton and sapodilla trees.
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The Maya boiled the sap of
the sapodilla tree to a sticky mass, a substance we today know
as chicle. For the Maya, its uses were many. They used it in
making blowguns and as a strong glue in crafts and architecture.
It was an article of trade and was frequently used in religious
rituals. Maya boys chewed it, calling the stuff cha. The Maya
abandoned their cities for mysterious reasons around the year
800 C.E., but fortunately for us, they retained their custom of
chewing chicle.
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Flash forward a few hundreds
of years, because1869 marks the year that modern day gum
products were born. The famous Mexican General, Antonio Lopez de
Santa Anna (remember the Alamo?) was looking for a way to
commercially exploit the properties of chicle. Unaware of its
chewable virtues, Santa Anna originally hoped chicle could be
exported as a rubber substitute. So he passed it along to
American inventor Thomas Adams. Adams found chicle unsuitable as
a base for rubber, but realized its potential as a chewing gum
after boiling it and rolling it in sugar. His boiled chicle
vastly outsold all other varieties of gum available at the time,
and thus revolutionized the industry.
Though Adams can be credited
with the invention of chicle-based chewing gum, it was William
Wrigley who built an empire on it. By 1893 Wrigley contracted
the Zeno Gum Corporation to make the two main brands still
available today - Wrigley’s ‘Juicy Fruit’ and ‘Spearmint.’ His
marketing of these products was remarkably innovative and
defiant of convention: a mile-long sign composed of one hundred
and seventeen billboards between Atlantic City and Trenton, New
Jersey, a huge collection of placards and electric signs in
Times Square, and a campaign of free samples for millions of
storekeepers and salesmen. The campaign was a resounding
success, and the chewing of gum became a national addiction. The
increasing consumption of chewing gum in the United States meant
an increasing demand for chicle from the Peten. Chicleros, or
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Sapodilla tree- tappers, began to immigrate into the region from
neighboring zones such as Veracruz, Chiapas, Yucatan state and
Belize. These workers in the forest economy began to enjoy
greater economic freedom from the oppressive Mexican state and
the Yucateca elite. Whole villages came to rely on the
production of chicle; the village of Uaxactun, for example,
arose around an airstrip that was visited daily by small
aircraft from the Wrigley’s company, collecting chicle for
export to the Unite States. In 1943, México exported 8,165 tons
of chicle to the United States, the largest amount in the
industry’s history. However, this boom was short lived; during
World War Two, the shortage of chewing gum base forced
manufacturers to develop synthetic gum resins, which gradually
replaced chicle as a gum base. The market for chewing gum has
grown remarkably through the years, from a yearly consumption in
the United States of 39 sticks per person in 1914 to 200 sticks
per person today. Gum made from synthetic materials makes up the
majority of this expanding industry. However, chicle is still
being harvested today in Guatemala, Belize and Mexico for use in
high quality gums in Asia.
From September to January, a
time of torrential rains in the Peten, skilled laborers called
chicleros hike out to remote parts of the rainforest, seeking
either virgin Sapodilla trees or those that were tapped many
years prior. They climb up the long trunk of the tree and make a
series of diagonal cuts with their machete, taking care to cut
only deep enough to allow the white sap to bleed out, but not
deep enough to expose the tree to insects or infection. The sap
runs down the tree in the grooves cut out by the machete, and
collects at the base of the tree in a small canvas sack left by
the chiclero. At the end of the day, chicleros collect these
sacks. Each tapping only yields about 2.5 pounds of liquid over
a six-hour period, and a chiclero will tap 6-12 trees a day in
order to make his quota.
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The key ingredient to both
Glee Gum and the Make Your Own Chewing Gum Kit is chicle. Glee
Gum is actually the only gum in the United States with chicle in
its gum base. Using chicle in our Glee Gum and in our Make Your
Own Chewing Gum Kit helps protect the rainforest and provide
sustainable subsistence for the people that live there. Without
non-timber forest products like chicle, the trees in the forest
would be cut down systematically, as their only commercial value
would be as logs. So consider that the next time you choose your
chewing gum, and chew-se wisely!
Want to See the Process from
Tree to Glee?
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