Who invented chewing

It was worse: it was immoral. Emily Post wouldn't even say the word. It didn't so much have to be sold to the American public as justified. So justified it has been -- for years. Perhaps it promises cleaner teeth and stronger jaws. Admiral Byrd chewed gum at the South Pole to calm his nerves. Just the other day I read an article in American Scientist. Chewing gum appears to fight depression by releasing serotonins.

So chewing gum came to stay. And what about Santa Ana and Adams? Santa Ana died penniless; Adams died rich. What is chewing gum made of? How is chewing gum good for you? Gum fun facts Smile! The first patent for chewing gum was issued in to William F. Semple of Mount Vernon, Ohio. His occupation? A whole lotta chewin' going on: There are more than 1, varieties of gum manufactured and sold in the United States. Save your pennies: Each year in North America, kids spend approximately half a billion dollars on gum.

Wonder What's Next? The bubble was 23 inches in diameter! Did you get it? Test your knowledge. What are you wondering? Wonder Words tree sap wad Mayan Indians mastiche chicle latex dissolve chemist synthetic palatable glycerin saliva neutralize Take the Wonder Word Challenge. Join the Discussion. Riley Feb 19, This is so interesting I never thought this would be so good.

Feb 20, Thanks, Riley! Noelle Dec 18, Dec 20, Dec 10, Thanks, dolphin lover floradin! May 1, That would be a good question to ask your friends, blake! Dylan Apr 26, Apr 26, That' some good stuff, right there. Ryan Oct 18, Brenden Oct 11, Oct 15, Hopefully this Wonder helped you learn more about chewing gum!

Ryan Oct 11, Jazzy Sep 4, Ginger May 14, That video is cute! I love that my teacher told me about wonderoplis. May 21, Can you add publishers and dates so I ay cite this an a source? Sep 30, Feb 11, Richie Mar 26, Apr 4, Celena Erazo Feb 1, I love gum Feb 9, That would be awesome!

Maybe you could create this type of chewing gum one day, Celena! Oct 1, Hi, alexis! Not everyone likes gum, and that's OK!

Thanks for being our Wonder Friend! Patrick Mar 20, Mar 21, Jan 6, Kevin Blitz Mar 16, Mar 17, Madeline Jan 29, Jan 31, Olivia Sep 17, I have heard that if you chew gum while you study and then the next day chew the same flavor it helps you remeber Desairay Matadamas Nov 5, Gavin person Jan 29, Nov 6, Sep 19, Jan 20, Thanks for visiting Wonderopolis!

We appreciate you exploring the comments! I love, love, loooooooove chewing gum but If not, I expect to see it soon. Amanda Fiegl is a former assistant editor at Smithsonian and is now a senior editor at the Nature Conservancy.

Chewing gum has been around for centuries. Flickr user Mr. But have you ever thought about where it comes from? One's wife also chews chicle, but not in public Thus they chew chicle in order not to be detested. As the fortunes of Adams, Wrigley and other chewing gum magnates surged, many Latin American communities would soon pay the price: "Workers in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize became highly dependent on North American corporations buying their product, and fluctuations in the prices and rate of purchases had a huge impact on their countries' economies.

This unsustainable industry set into motion another so-called collapse of Maya civilization that continues to have an effect today. Post a Comment. I'd venture to say most of us don't care what goes into it, or how it's made. But should we? It's a question I started asking myself recently while driving from my home in Brooklyn to visit friends in upstate New York.

Just past Yonkers, I found myself gnawing on the same stick of gum I'd popped in my mouth an hour earlier, even though it was long past its prime. As the minty flavor gave way to nothing at all, it hit me that what had once been a sweet, stretchy confection was starting to feel more like Silly Putty: sad, gray, and unmistakably synthetic.

I decided to look into it. The practice of chewing gum dates back thousands of years, its enduring popularity evident in the dried chicle a natural gum derived from trees found among Mayan ruins in southern Mexico and the thousands of grayscale ovals pressed into city sidewalks around the world.

But why we chew gum is a matter of conjecture. Some say it's a way to stave off hunger, deal with stress, or even improve our memory. I read that during the world wars, Wrigley chewing gum was included in military rations, as it was believed to help soldiers with their stress, thirst, and hunger. A study claimed that chewing gum "significantly improved performance on standardised tests of working memory and episodic memory immediate and delayed word recall. Meanwhile, a University of Rhode Island study found that gum can act as an appetite suppressant, greatly reducing the number of calories we consume, because chewing it stimulates the nerves in our brain responsible for satiety.

While I've never relied on gum as a performance-enhancing drug or weight-loss tool, I do find that chewing helps reduce my stress levels, especially when I'm past deadline yes, I'm chewing a lot of gum right now. And, because I work from home—or, more specifically, from my kitchen table—it distracts me from raiding the fridge every 15 minutes for cold pizza and Diet Coke.

Occasionally, it even lets me wow my hard-to-impress two-year-old daughter with my mad bubble-blowing skills. But this story isn't so much about why we chew gum as it is about what gum is —and where, exactly, it came from. As it turns out, the process of manufacturing gum is pretty simple. The basic steps include mixing the ingredients more on those in a moment in what's known as a sigma mixer , which kneads the gum until it takes on the consistency of bread dough. It's then extruded from the mixer, rolled into sheets or small blocks, and finally cooled, cut, and packaged.

The manufacturing of gum may be simple, but those ingredients are another story. Gum base itself is made of three things: a resin for chewiness, wax for softness, and elastomers that maintain its elasticity. While early chewing gums were made from tree-based resins and natural waxes, these days, both ingredients are synthetically derived from petrochemicals. In other words, the gum you chew is essentially plastic and rubber.

According to the Washington, DC—based International Chewing Gum Association, gum is so shelf-stable that there is no law requiring an expiration date for it. Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that. Natural and artificial waxes, which act as lubricants between strands of polymers, are sometimes combined to give the gum a better consistency.

Other gum ingredients might include natural and artificial flavors; emulsifiers, which keep the gum soft; antioxidants, which keep it fresh; and humectants, like glycerol, to keep it moist. Then, of course, there are sweeteners, both natural and artificial. The reason I can capture my daughter's attention with those huge bubbles I blow is thanks to a high proportion of the aforementioned elastomers—either natural or synthetic latexes—added to bubble gum bases.

According to John Milton, author of Vanity, Vitality, and Virility: The Science Behind the Products You Love to Buy , bubble gum is often made with styrene-butadiene SBR , a food-grade polymer that swells when it comes into contact with saliva, or food-grade butyl rubber—oddly, the same stuff that's used to make bicycle inner tubes.

Reading over the ingredient list of my mainstay sugarless Orbit Bubblemint, I noticed that artificial sweeteners occupied the lion's share of the text. In fact, it contains a virtual cocktail of the stuff, including sorbitol, mannitol, aspartame, acesulfame K, sucralose, and xylitol.

Other ingredients on the list: glycerol, the above-mentioned humectant; soy lecithin, an emulsifier; the antioxidant BHT butylhydroxytoluene , a synthetic preservative that's also used in rubber and— gasp —embalming fluid; and colors and flavors both natural and artificial. Of course, the most important quality to most of us gum-chewers is that last one: flavor.