Gum Arabic

Gum arabic, also sometimes called acacia gum or acacia powder, is a fibrous product made from the natural hardened sap of two types of wild Acacia trees. Around the world, gum arabic goes by many names, including acacia gum, arabic gum, acacia powder, Senegal gum, Indian gum and others.

What’s interesting about acacia trees is that they produce the most gum arabic when they experience “adverse conditions,” such as poor soil, drought or high heat. This actually damages the trees to some degree but causes an increase in the production of arabic gum.

What type of organic molecule is gum arabic? It is made of a mixture of glycoproteins, a class of proteins that have carbohydrate groups attached to the polypeptide chain, and polysaccharides, a carbohydrate whose molecules consist of a number of sugar molecules bonded together. It also includes oligosaccharides, another type of carbohydrate. Additionally, gums collected from acacia trees are a source of natural sugar compounds called arabinose and ribose, which were some of the first concentrated sugars to be derived from plants/trees. The exact chemical composition of gum arabic varies from product to product, depending on its source and the climate/soil conditions in which it was grown.