Gum arabic
|
accacia senegal plant from Koehler's Medicinal-Plants 1887 |
Gum arabic, a
natural gum also called
gum acacia, is a substance that is taken from two
sub-Saharan species of the
acacia tree,
Acacia senegal and
Acacia seyal. It is used primarily in the
food industry as a
stabilizer, but has had more varied uses in the past, including
viscosity control in
inks. Its
E number is E-414.
The
gum produced by the trees in question reseals the plant's
bark in the event of damage -- a process called
gummosis.
Gum arabic is a complex mixture of
saccharides and
glycoproteins, which gives it one of its most useful properties: it is perfectly edible. Other substances have replaced it in situations where toxicity is not an issue, as the proportions of the various chemicals in gum arabic varies widely and make its reliable performance troublesome. Still, it remains an important ingredient in
soft drink syrups, "hard" gummy candies like
gumdrops, and in
marshmallows. For artists it is the traditional binder used in
watercolor paint, and was used in photography for
gum printing. Pharmaceuticals and
cosmetics also use the gum, and it is used as a
binder in
pyrotechnic compositions. It is an important ingredient in
shoe polish. It is also used often as a lickable
adhesive in
cigarette papers.
The substance is grown commercially throughout the
Sahel from
Senegal to
Sudan.
Oddly, the connection between Sudan and
Osama bin Laden brought the otherwise innocuous gum to public consciousness in 2001, as an
urban legend arose that bin Laden owned a significant fraction of the gum arabic production in
Sudan, and that therefore one should
boycott products using it ([
1]). As a result some food producers, for instance
Snapple, renamed the ingredient "gum acacia" on their labels.
This story took on somewhat significant proportions, mostly thanks to an article in
The Daily Telegraph a few days after the
September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks, which echoed this claim. Eventually the US
State Department issued a release stating that while Osama bin Laden had once had considerable holdings in Sudanese gum arabic production, he divested himself of these when he was expelled from Sudan in
1996.
Gum arabic is also used in
witchcraft as a harder-wearing alternative to chalk in protective circles, and as an incense.
Gum arabic reduces the
surface tension of liquids, which leads to increased fizzing in
carbonated beverages. This is known as a
Mentos eruption and can be seen in
The Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments diet coke and mentos video here aswell.
*http://www.sbu.ac.uk/water/hyarabic.html
*http://www.cniworld.com (CNI : Colloides Naturels International is the Gum Arabic World Leader)
