Clayton Hawman, age 11, of Port Arthur, Arthu7r‑,Ont., for his question:
How is chewing gum made?
A stick of chewing gum is made from several ingredients,The gummy ingredient comes from far away. But the recipe is brewed in America where most of the world’s chewing gum is made and used. Americans chew up more plain and fancy gum than all the rest of the world,
The gummy ingredient is a special tree sap. Most of this comes from the sapodilla, a handsome tropical evergreen. The leaves of its glossy foliage are pointed ovals, creased down the center, In addition to gum, the sapodilla yields fine wood and delicious fruit. The wood of the big tree is a rich brown color, very hard and durable. The sweet brown. pulp of the fruit is covered in rough brown skin.
The sapodilla grows in Central America, the West Indies and the Phillippines, Most of our supplies come from Yucatan, Guatamala and British Honduras: The sap from the sapodilla which we use to make chewing gum is called chicle ‑which rimes with tickle.
The tree trunk is gashed to let out its gummy sap. It drains into a pail and the; liquid is taken away to be boiled, This removes a lot of the water. The solid chicle remains to be packed in large slabs and sent to America. A sapodilla tree can be harvested for its chicle only once every four to eight years.
The solid chicle goes to the chewing gum factory. First of all it is thoroughly washed, cleaned and purified. Then it it mixed in a huge vat with sugars and flavoring ingredients. From here in, all the work is done by machinery.
Machines stir the brew at 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Machines roll the pasty dough, add a fixative to make sure the flavor lasts, and cut the sheets into proper sized sticks. More machines fold each stick of gum into a neat, germ‑free package.
About 28% of the finished gum is chicleor some other gummy tree sap, The rest is a caramel blend of sugars from sugar cane, sugar beet or sweet corn for flavoring corn. The flavoring is extracted from fruit or tasty herbs. The favorite flavors come from mint herbs. Spearmint is extracted from fresh garden mint and tangy peppermint comes from its tall, minty cousin, the peppermint herb.
Bubble gum is mixed with a latex base which comes from a relative of the rubber tree. As you chew it, bubbles of your breath get trapped in little rubber balloons. Like all balloons you can fill them with just so much air. One extra puff and the bubble gum balloon explodes with a pop.
Even the pioneers and early settlers chewed gum. Though it was very dull stuff compared with our modern varieties. They chewed on the gummy sap of the spruce pine and on certain cactus juices. The Mexican general of the Alamo massacre, Santa Anna, first brought chicle gum to the U.S. John Colgan, a Louisville druggist, first added flavor to chicle gum and paved the way to the wonderful chewing gum we have today.