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Chicle
A portion of this article is reprinted from the
Chicle.com website. Chicle is a natural gum collected from the
Sapodilla tree and is made into the most popular chewing gum in Mexico.
Chicle History
Chicle is the latex from the Sapodilla tree which is native to Central
and South America. This latex was collected and used as a chewing gum
by the Mayans.
Chicle was mixed with sugar and flavoring, typically sassafras or liquorices
and made into a gum which was patented in 1871. This led to the
production of other well known gum products such as Chicklets, and Wrigley
gums.
The chewing gum industry has long since exhausted the supplies of natural
chicle so most gum is now made of synthetic blends of rubber, resins and
oils.
Chicle.com explains the collection process.
Originally, chicle
-natural chewing gum- is the milky juice, or latex of the “chicozapote”, or
sapodilla tree (Manilkara zapota), found in the tropical forest of the
Yucatán Peninsula, Belize, and northern Guatemala. Today this region, which
is the heart of the Mayan world and is Known as the Gran Petén, has the
second largest land surface covered whit tropical rain forest on the
American continent, the Amazonia ranking first.
The sapodilla is the most abundant tree in the jungles of the Gran Petén. In
some places it is possible to find over thirty trees in a single hectare,
while there will be only one mahogany tree in that same area. Sapodillas
sometimes reach a height of over 40 metres, with diameters of more than a
meter.
Chicle is collected from july to February, during the rainy season,
when the latex flows better. With a sharp-edged machete, chicle collectors
make zigzag cuts from the base of the tree trunk up to its first branches.
The latex drips down these grooves and is collected in a bag. At present,
approximately 5,000 chicle collectors perfom their arduous, artisanal work
each season in the jungles of the Gran Petén.
One of the main environmental problems faced by our planet is the growing
destruction of tropical forest. The most widespread solution put into
practice to curb this process has been to create natural parks and reserves
where the utilization of the resources found there is usually prohibited. As
an economic activity, chicle extraction is very important for the people who
live in the Gran Petén. There, chicle collectors have become zealous
guardians of the sapodilla tree and its ecological settings. Through the
consumption of NATURAL GUM CHICLE™, a sustainable extractive activity is
being promoted, helping to keep alive the jungles where the Mayan
civilization once flourished.
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