Glee Gum Kit review/giveaway Closed!

Glee Gum Kit Closed!

Review/Giveaway

Wow! What kid,umm and most adults, wouldn't want to make their own gum?!!  This is the coolest thing ever!

When I was given the opportunity to review for Glee Gum I became very excited.  I have 8 grandchildren, all gum chewers, who I knew would go crazy over this.  The difference in this gum and the gum they are always buying is, this gum isn't bad for you and it also helps conserve the rainforest.  Now how in the world, you may ask, does gum have anything to do with the rainforest? Well, here is how Glee Gum began.

To trace the custom of chewing for pleasure to its source, we must look to the ancient Maya people of Central America. Originating in the Yucatan around 2600 B.C.E., they rose to prominence around 250 C.E. in the area now known as southern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, El Salvador, and northern Belize. Building on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations like the Olmec, the Maya developed astronomy, an intricate calendar, and hieroglyphic writing.

The Maya were expert weavers and potters, and to hawk their wares they cleared routes through jungles and swamps, fostering extensive trade networks with distant peoples in the process. The Maya were equally skilled farmers, clearing large sections of tropical rain forest to plant food crops like corn, beans, and squash, as well as hemp, cotton and sapodilla trees.

The Maya boiled the sap of the sapodilla tree to a sticky mass, a substance we today know as chicle. For the Maya, its uses were many. They used it in making blowguns and as a strong glue in crafts and architecture. It was an article of trade and was frequently used in religious rituals. Maya boys chewed it, calling the stuff cha. The Maya abandoned their cities for mysterious reasons around the year 800 C.E., but fortunately for us, they retained their custom of chewing chicle.

1869 marks the year that modern day gum products were born. The famous Mexican General, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (remember the Alamo?) was looking for a way to commercially exploit the properties of chicle. Unaware of its chewable virtues, Santa Anna originally hoped chicle could be exported as a rubber substitute. So he passed it along to American inventor Thomas Adams. Adams found chicle unsuitable as a base for rubber, but realized its potential as a chewing gum after boiling it and rolling it in sugar. His boiled chicle vastly outsold all other varieties of gum available at the time, and thus revolutionized the industry.

Though Adams can be credited with the invention of chicle-based chewing gum, it was William Wrigley who built an empire on it.

From September to January, a time of torrential rains in the Peten, skilled laborers called chicleros hike out to remote parts of the rainforest, seeking either virgin Sapodilla trees or those that were tapped many years prior. They climb up the long trunk of the tree and make a series of diagonal cuts with their machete, taking care to cut only deep enough to allow the white sap to bleed out, but not deep enough to expose the tree to insects or infection. The sap runs down the tree in the grooves cut out by the machete, and collects at the base of the tree in a small canvas sack left by the chiclero. At the end of the day, chicleros collect these sacks. Each tapping only yields about 2.5 pounds of liquid over a six-hour period, and a chiclero will tap 6-12 trees a day in order to make his quota.

The key ingredient to both Glee Gum and the Make Your Own Chewing Gum Kit is chicle. Glee Gum is actually the only gum in the United States with chicle in its gum base. Using chicle in our Glee Gum and in our Make Your Own Chewing Gum Kit helps protect the rainforest and provide sustainable subsistence for the people that live there. Without non-timber forest products like chicle, the trees in the forest would be cut down systematically, as their only commercial value would be as logs.

So there you have it, the process of getting the chicle to making sure that the rainforest is preserved and the people there prosper.

Glee Gum is all natural chewing gum made with sustainably harvested rainforest chicle. It comes in SIX great flavors: cinnamon, peppermint, tangerine, bubblegum, spearmint, and triple berry. Glee Gum is the #1 healthy alternative to synthetic chewing gum and bubble gum! With no artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners (no aspartame), or preservatives, it's easy to chew Glee-fully!

To make your own gum you need the Chewing Gum Kit from Glee.

This kit has all the ingredients needed to make the gum, even the pan.  It will make the equivalant of 50 sticks of chewing gum.  To add different color to your gum try adding kool aid or food coloring.  This gum is really sweet tasting.  I really loved the taste of it and so did the kids.

Glee Gum also carries the "Make Your Own Gummies Kit" and the "Make Your Own Chocolate Kit" . Both kits have all the ingredients included.  All natural and each come with their own story of the development of the natural products.

The chocolate kit even has actual cacao beans!

All these kits are great for learning, whether it be at home or in the classroom.

Thanks to the Glee Gum Co. for not only letting me try out their awesome product, but to also learn a lot of educational information that I never knew before.  Saving our rainforest is a big deal to me and I hope it will be to you also. 

Giveaway

1 winner will receive 1 of the Glee Kits of their choice.

You must enter the Mandatory Entries first or none other will be counted.

Please leave your email address with each entry.

Mandatory Entries:

* Follow my Blog on GFC

&

* Like Glee Gum on their Facebook

Extra Entries:

1. Enter another one of my Giveaways

2.Visit the Glee Gum website and tell me which kit you would like to win

3.Sign up for Glee's newsletter+2

4.Follow me on Twitter+2

5.Tell a friend about this giveaway. Leave me a comment telling me who.+3

6.Follow Glee on Twitter+2

7.Tell me a location near you that sells Glee Gum.

8.Follow Blissfulbees Blog+3

9.Enter one of Blissfulbees Giveaway-tell me which one(worth 5 pts.)+2

10.Grab my button +2 (worth 8 pts.)

Giveaway ends 12/13

US-18+ only!

Winner will be chosen randomly

Winner has 24 hrs. to reply to my email or forfeit their prize

I was not compensated for this review other than receiving the gum kit.

The opinions of this product are my own.