Chewing gum dates back thousands of years, but only in the last two centuries has the practice become a widespread phenomenon, enjoyed by children and adults alike. With the mass marketing of chewing gum, and later bubble gum, those in need of fresh breath, sweet taste, and what the commercials call "pure chewing satisfaction" have many options from which to choose.

The Ancient Greeks were probably the first gum chewers. They chewed a resin from the lentisk, or mastic tree. During the same period, the Mayans of Central America chewed chicle (pronounced CHI-kull), the milky sap of the sapodilla tree. More than twenty centuries later, chicle is still one of the primary ingredients of modern chewing gum. Other chewers of olden times include the native North Americans, who chewed the sap from red spruce trees. European colonists later picked up the habit...