A chewing gum base comprises food acceptable substituted polysaccharides wherein substituents on the saccharide units in the polysaccharides produce a degree of substitution of at least I.0. The polysaccharides may have branches with an average length of 1 to 15 saccharide units per branch. The polysaccharides may be linked saccharide units such as allose, altrose, mannose, gulose, idose, galactose, 3,6 anhydro galactose, glucuronic acid, mannuronic acid, galacturonic acid, aldobiouronic acid, fucose, rhamnose, arabinose, xylose, talose, acyl substituted glucose, fructose, lactose and combinations thereof.
