The Chewing-Gum History

Chewing-gum exists since aproximatively 5000 years ago in the Neolithic period. At this time, they chewed wood as they believed it has some medicinal properties.

In the ancient Greece, they chewed mastiche, a derived-product of mastic trees. It was used because of the good taste and curative properties reported by Dioscorides.

In the middle ages, Sultan’s harem used to chew mastic as breath freshener, cosmetics and healing properties.

 Later on, American Indians chewed resin from spruce trees and the first settlers of New England picked it up and start to sell the first chewing gum in 1848 as the “The State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum” (John B. Curtis).

In 1850, the first wax-made chewing gum was sold and it didn’t take a long time for it to overpass the spruce tree gum in popularity.

The chewing-gum market really starts to grow with importation of chicle from Mexico to replace the rubber in 1860. Thanks to big companies like Adams New York Chewing Gum (1871), Black Jack (1884) and “Chiclets” (1899), chicle-based chewing-gum dominated the market after few months.

Until now, most of chewing-gum companies switched from chicle or similar latexes to synthetic gums (polyisobutylene) because of the low price and huge availability.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum,  www.gumballs.com