Everything about Arabic Gum totally explained
Gum arabic, a
natural gum also called
gum acacia, and
chaar gund or
char goond (in India), is a substance that's 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 E414.
Gum arabic is a complex
mixture of
saccharides and
glycoproteins, which gives it its most useful property: it's perfectly edible. Other substances have replaced it in situations where
toxicity isn't an issue, as the proportions of the various chemicals in gum arabic vary widely and make it unpredictable. Still, it remains an important ingredient in
soft drink syrups, "hard" gummy candies like
gumdrops,
marshmallows, M & M's chocolate candies, and most notably,
chewing gums. For
artists it's the traditional
binder used in
watercolor paint, and is used in photography for
gum printing.
Pharmaceuticals and
cosmetics also use the gum, and it's used as a binder in
pyrotechnic compositions. It is an important ingredient in
shoe polish. It is also used often as a lickable
adhesive on
postage stamps and
cigarette papers. Printers employ it to stop
oxidation of
aluminium printing plates in the interval between processing of the plate and its use on a
printing press.
The substance is grown commercially throughout the
Sahel from
Senegal and
Sudan to
Somalia.
Painting and Art
Gum arabic is used as a
binder for
watercolor painting because it dissolves easily in water.
Pigment of any color is suspended within the gum arabic in varying amounts, resulting in watercolor paint. Water acts as a vehicle or a
diluent to thin the watercolor paint and helps to transfer the paint to a surface such as
paper. When all moisture evaporates, the gum arabic binds the pigment to the
paper surface.
Photography
The historical
photography process of
gum bichromate photography uses gum arabic to permanently bind pigments on paper.
Ammonium or
potassium dichromate is mixed with gum arabic and
pigment to create a photographic
emulsion, sensitive to
ultraviolet light.
Printmaking
Gum arabic is also used to protect and
etch an image in
lithographic processes.
Ink tends to fill into
whitespace on
photosensitive aluminium plates if they don't receive a layer of gum. In
stone lithography the gum etch is used to etch the most subtle gray tones.
Phosphoric acid is added in varying concentrations to the gum arabic to etch the darker tones up to dark
blacks. Multiple layers of gum are used after the etching process to build up a protective barrier that ensures the
ink doesn't fill into the whitespace of the image being printed.
Political aspects
Although from the 1950s to the early 1990s Sudan accounted for roughly 80% of gum arabic production, today that figure is under 50%. However it's still the world's largest single producer, and the production of gum arabic is heavily controlled by the Sudanese government.
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. As a result, some
food producers, such as
Snapple, renamed the ingredient to "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 attacks, which echoed this claim. Eventually, the
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.
In a press conference held at the Washington Press Club on
30 May,
2007, John Ukec Lueth Ukec, Sudan's ambassador to the United States, threatened to stop exportation of gum arabic from his country if sanctions were imposed. The sanctions proposed by the United States were a political response from the United States to the alleged connection between the government of Sudan and the
Janjaweed militia group. Ukec made his speech surrounded by Coca-Cola products, although other sodas use gum arabic as an emulsifier as well.
John Ukec Lueth Ukec was quoted at the Washington press conference, "I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country," which he said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola. According to the
Washington Post, a reporter then asked if Sudan was threatening to "stop the export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world." To which Ukec replied, "I can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this," and gestured to the Coke bottle.
Pyrotechnics
Gum arabic is also used as a water soluble binder in
firework composition.
Effect on surface tension in liquids
Gum arabic reduces the
surface tension of
liquids, which leads to increased fizzing in
carbonated beverages. This can be exploited in what is known as a
Diet Coke and Mentos eruption.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Arabic Gum'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://gum_arabic.totallyexplained.com">Gum arabic Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
