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Ingredients in Chiclets

The Cadbury Company manufactures and sells Chiclets, a brand of chewing gum first invented by F. Henry Fleer in 1890. Early marketing campaigns advertised the peppermint-flavored product as "gum iced with candy" and gum historian Rocky Lundy states that Chiclets were the first chewing gum coated with candy. Today, you can buy Chiclets in a variety of flavors, such as strawberry, fruit flavor, spearmint and the original, peppermint, whose ingredients vary by sugared and sugarless products.

  1. Sugar and Sugar Substitutes

    • Sugar, or one of its substitutes, is the No. 1 ingredient found in Chiclets. The sugar sweetens the gum and the manufacturing process can use sugar, glucose syrup or both. Glucose syrup consists of a number of natural sugars, including dextrose, maltose and maltodextrin, all of which are derivatives of starch taken from potatoes or corn. The sugarless versions of Chiclets contain sorbitol, maltitol and mannitol, which are sugar alcohols. According to The Sugar Association, scientists derive these synthetic sugar substitutes from grains, wood, corn and cornstarch, onions and a variety of other plants and fruits. These sweeteners provide about 60 to 90 percent of the sweetness of sugar, and though technically not sugar, still contribute calories to the gum.

    Gum Base

    • Gum base gives chewing gum its chewy consistency and rubbery texture. In modern chewing gums, candy companies use synthetic types of rubber such as styrene butadiene or polyethylene. Chiclets, by contrast, originally used the Chicle latex from the sapodilla tree (scientific name: Manilkara chicle) found in Mexico and Central American countries such as Guatemala. Farmers cut swathes into the tree, which then releases the slow-flowing Chicle resin into buckets placed under each cut. Gum bases such as Chicle make up anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of a Chiclet, with the amount depending on whether the Chiclet is sugarless. According to the myth-debunking website Snopes, the human body cannot digest gum base, but still excretes it along with other foods.

    Flavorings and Colorings

    • The sugared versions of Chiclets all contain natural flavorings such as peppermint or spearmint. Sugarless Chiclets rely on a combination of natural and artificial flavorings and also use artificial colorings. These colorings include Red 40 Lake, Yellow 5 Lake and titanium dioxide. According to herbalist Djehuty Ma'at-Ra in his article "The Dangers of Chewing Gum," scientists derive the Lake colorings from petroleum.

    Candelilla Wax

    • This naturally-occurring vegetable wax comes from the Candelilla plant found in Texas and Mexico, where it coats the plant's leaves to help keep it moist. Chiclets incorporate Candelilla wax to enable the gum to retain its flavor longer and to increase the consistency so that it chews better and longer.

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