5th August 2016
Foods to Avoid for Ideal Dental Health
When it comes to dental health, it is often possible to tell how healthy one’s teeth are by nothing more than a simple glance. White, glowing teeth that are straight and aligned tend to simply look healthy, and give the owner of the teeth a more beautiful smile overall. This is because health in your body, including in your mouth, simply shines through and gives you a glow.
Like many aspects of your health, the state of your teeth and your level of dental health is largely connected to what you eat. This should not come as a shock at all, however, due to the fact that your teeth come into direct contact with the food you eat in order to break it into sizable pieces and chew it up.
If you want your teeth to be healthy and for your smile to have that beautiful glow you’ve been coveting for so long, do your teeth a favour and educate yourself on the foods that are the worst for your dental health. It’s probably a good idea to do your best to stay away from the foods that are bad for your teeth. Be aware of the effects that your diet can have on your dental health to limit your consumption of harmful foods to the best of your ability.
The types of foods that you should do your best to stay away from for the welfare of your teeth include:
- Sugary foods and candy: These types of foods tend to be harmless in moderation, but an excess of them does not make for happy teeth. Chewy candy—especially sour chewy candy—tends to be the worst, as the pieces stuck between your teeth can promote bacteria.
- Citrus fruits: These wear away at tooth enamel, so it’s best to limit your consumption of fruits like grapefruit and lemon. Orange juice does not tend to cause quite as much damage, so long as your care for your teeth as recommended through brushing and flossing.
- Pickled foods: Due to the acids essential in the pickling process, pickles and other pickled foods are potentially hazardous to tooth enamel. Eating pickles more than once a day could start to show some wear on your teeth, but snacking on them every now and then should not be noticeable.
- Soda: While many have long been aware of the fact that the sugar in carbonated beverages is bad for their teeth, it turns out that the acids found in these sodas are even more harmful. If you can’t cut soda out completely, when you do drink it, it’s best to drink it during meals, as this helps to neutralise the acid.
- Wine: Although this one might be hard for many to stay away from, wine has harmful effects for more than one reason. Red wine contains substances that discolour teeth, in addition to the tannins in it that dry out your mouth and worsen stains. This doesn’t mean white wine is safe, however—it, like red wine, also contains acids that will allow stains from other foods to show more prominently on your teeth.
It’s all but impossible to cut out the aforementioned foods completely. However, for the sake of your dental health, it’s probably a good idea to limit your consumption of these things if any of them are something your teeth are exposed to on a daily basis. Remember, everything is best in moderation!
