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is made with all natural ingredients including:
pure cane sugar, rice syrup, natural flavorings and colorings.
Our gum base has super chewy natural chicle harvested from
Sapodilla trees in the rain forests of Central America.
Glee Gum is: Vegetarian, Additive Free, Lactose Free, Dairy
Free, Wheat Free, Gluten Free, Casein Free, Egg Free, Yeast
Free, Nut Free, and Peanut Free.
* All Glee Gum is soy free.
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: all natural ingredients,
rice syrup instead of corn syrup, natural chicle, delicious,
long-lasting, and popular flavors: tangerine, peppermint,
cinnamon, spearmint and bubblegum. |
: artificial preservatives, artificial
flavors, artificial colors, artificial sweeteners (e.g. aspartame,
saccharin or cyclamate). |
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Still
interested in ingredients? |
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.
Chewing for pleasure goes back to the Ancient Greeks, who
chewed on the resin of the mastic tree. The Maya, too, developed
the custom well over a thousand years ago, chewing the coagulated
sap of the Sapodilla tree, a treat known today as chicle.
The Maya abandoned their cities for mysterious reasons around
the year 800, but fortunately for us, they retained their
custom of chewing chicle.
1869 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, and 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.
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.
However, almost all gum is now made completely from synthetic
materials. Only Glee chewing gum, and some sold in the Far
East contain chicle.
In Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize, chicle still represents
an important part of the economy for the chicleros who harvest
it. From September to January, a time of torrential rains,
the chicleros hike out to remote parts of the rainforest,
seeking either virgin chicle trees or those that were tapped
several years before. They climb into the tree and make a
series of cuts with their machete, taking care that they cut
only deep enough to allow the white sap to bleed out, but
not deep enough to expose the tree to insects or infection.
Each tapping only yields about 2.5 pounds of gum over a six-hour
period, and a chiclero will tap 6-12 trees a day in order
to make his quota.
The movement for rainforest sustainability depends, in part,
on non-timber forest products, advocating for renewable resources
that can be made economically viable. Verve hopes that the
forest can be more profitable standing than cut down.
Now there's something to chew on, along with your next piece
of chicle-based gum!
Want to learn more?
Want to See the Process from
Tree to Glee? |
Glee Gum is sold in retail boxes with
18 pieces/box.
The display cartons pictured below contain 12 retail boxes per
carton.
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During
WWII, U.S. military personnel spread the popularity of
chewing gum by trading it and giving it as gifts to people
in Europe, Africa, Asia and around the world.
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Cinnamon,
spearmint and peppermint are among the most popular flavors
of chewing gum today.
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Chewing
on gum while cutting onions can help a person from producing
tears.
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The
color of the first successful bubble gum was pink because
it was the only color the inventor had left. The color
“stuck,” and today bubble gum is still predominantly pink.
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The
largest bubble ever blown was 23 inches in diameter. The
record was set July 19, 1994 by Susan Montgomery Williams
of Fresno, CA.
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Blibber-Blubber,
a failed attempt at bubble gum, was invented in 1906 but
was deemed too sticky to sell.
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