What ingredients is chewing gum made of?!


Question: What ingredients is chewing gum made of?
I don't just want big names of chemicals, I would like to know were the ingredients comes from. Is it from a plant? Is it produced in a science lab? Are the ingredients natural or man made? Does gum have edible rubber in it?

Answers:

Originally, chewing gum was made from the latex sap (chicle) of the sapodilla tree or other tree saps. For many years, gum base was made from chicle which was the chief ingredient in chewing gum. Today many modern chewing gums use rubber instead of chicle. In the middle 1900s, chemists learned to make synthetic rubber, which became a substitute for most natural rubber in chewing gums. Most gums are made from a synthetic rubber, or a mixture of artificial and natural bases.

Softeners are added to retain moisture. The most popular softeners are glycerin or vegetable oil based. Those ingredients are used to help prevent the gum from becoming hard or to stark.

Sweeteners are added to gum to give it that sweet flavor. Those ingredients are usually sugar, corn syrup and even beet juice. Sugar is probably the healthiest off all sweeteners. There are many synthetic sweeteners, but the most used are xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol and aspartame are also used.

A flavor ingredient in chewing gum has been found to provide long lasting, high intensity and high quality flavor. The flavorings are added last. The most used flavors in chewing gums are: peppermint (called only mint), fruit, spearmint (a variation of mint flavor), menthol (a mint related flavor). Other flavors are synthetically created and perfected in the lab.




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