Dane Cardone, age » , of Visalia, Calif., for his question:

WHO DISCOVERED CHEWING GUM?

Ancient Greeks chewed gum they made from the sap of mastic trees. A thousand years later the Mayan Indians of Mexico chewed chicle and later the Indians in New England taught the white settlers to chew a gum made from the hardened sap of the spruce tree. Paraffin wax was a popular gum during the 1800s. People, it seems, have always enjoyed chewing.

once chicle, obtained by boiling down the milky juice of the sapodilla tree in Mexico and Central America, was used as the leading gum base. Then came synthetic gum bases that resemble chicle. Softeners, made of refined vegetable oils, are added to the base with corn syrup and sugar. Mannitol and sorbitol are used in sugarless gum.