Hi, I'm Cristen Conger from
Stuff Mom Never Told You here
to tell you know what's
inside of chewing gum
that makes it so chewable.
Well, prior to World
War II, chewing gum
was actually made of
something called "chicle"
which came from trees which
are native to Central America.
And essentially,
chicle is a latex sap,
but you can't get a lot of
chicle from those trees.
In fact, if you tap a
chicle tree for 24 hours,
it only yields about
two and a half pounds
of chicle which would get
you only a few hundred sticks
of chewing gum.
So not the best
kind of ingredient
to use for the long-haul.
Because by World
War II, Americans
were chewing gum like
crazy, all over the place.
But then after the
war, these chemists
got together and were
like, hey, you know what?
We should think of some kind
of chicle substitute, you know?
And so they came up
with another kind
of synthetic rubber
analogous to chicle.
And so today chewing gum is
made from these synthetic rubber
compounds combined
with things like sugar
and natural and
artificial flavorings.
So to answer the
question of what
makes chewing gum so
chewable, it's rubber.
It's rubber.
We're really just
chewing on rubber,
flavored like watermelons,
or grapes, or candied apples,
or hot dogs.
No, not that one.
So that's it for BrainStuff.
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gum, or BrainStuff, or other
cool things that you can learn.
And why I'm holding
my hands like this--
that's a good question, too.
