i love this forum and the perspectives everyone brings to it. i feel like i get a clearer and bigger picture of anything after reading what all of you have to say!
laura
ps i do think birch bark gum was chewed for xylitol. as trapper says, i would bet the mortgatge on it. on one of these sites it says that xylitol is extracted from the bark. (so maybe that means no trees are taken out for our chewing pleasure...)