Oral Health: Foods That Help Clean Your Teeth
Key Takeaways
- Regular dental check-ups and proper oral care, including daily brushing and flossing, are essential for healthy teeth.
- Good food choices such as milk, cheese, nuts, and crunchy fruits and vegetables can strengthen and remineralize tooth enamel.
- Limiting the consumption of sugary foods and drinks, including natural sugars like honey and molasses, can help prevent tooth decay and maintain overall bodily health, including cardiovascular health.
Your teeth are a huge part of eating. And when your teeth hurt, it can be somewhat less enjoyable eating any kind of food, no matter how good it may taste. We have some suggestions on how to keep those teeth healthy, strong and white.
Dentists
First off, if you have not seen a dentist in over a year, go see one. There are horror stories about them and visits to them, but by and large, they have your best interests in mind. Go get a cleaning, then work on keeping your pearly whites just that same way they were when you left their office.
Let it also be said, there are no substitutes for daily brushing and flossing. This is a kind of care your dentist can instruct you in and what is best for your teeth and any anomalies you may have in your mouth.
Cavities
Cavities are caused by the bacteria in your mouth constantly converting sugars into acids which then eats the enamel on your teeth and begins the decay process. It is this acid and sugar we remove when we brush and floss.
Food Choices
Now the fun part: eating! There are certain things your mom told you not to eat because you would rot your teeth, and you know what? She was right. But as with most things we are told when we are kids, there is another side to that story. There are also things we can eat to help strengthen our teeth and help keep them clean.
Remineralization. That is a really big word, but it is important to understand what goes on in your mouth with good food.
There is an abundance of material on the process, but the simplified version is that it happens when the food you eat provides calcium and phosphorus and when brought together with your tooth enamel can assist in making an acid-resistant surface making it harder for acids to eat away at the surface of your teeth.
Foods like milk, cheese, nuts, chicken, and water are amazing foods that help improve tooth health.
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Good Tooth Food
Foods that fall into this category are cheeses, chicken, nuts and milk. These foods can add the vital minerals back to your teeth and allow them to be absorbed both by contact and by ingestion. The minerals are just one part of the process, the second is saliva. Foods with high water content allow you to wash away food particles and buffer the acid. These foods may include crunchy vegetables or fruits like apples and pears. Obviously, water helps with improving digestion as well.
Not So Good Food
The effects of good food can be washed away easily by consuming too much food that contains large amounts of sugar and sticks to your teeth. Things like suckers or other candy, bread, dried fruit or cakes do not make the cut for things that are good for your teeth. This also goes for liquid sugars like soda, lemonade, tea or coffee. These should be limited as they all have sugar or acid that can prevent good foods from rebuilding your teeth.
Sugar Substitutes
Sorbitol, Equal, and Sunett are just a few names of artificial sweeteners that are in some food and drink that are popular. These are viable alternatives to sugar as they do not feed the bacteria the same way that regular sugar does.
While these man-made sugars are an alternative, some natural sugars are not and have just as bad as an effect on your teeth. Things like honey, molasses, cane sugar and rice syrup are just as easy for those bacteria to feed and grow on.
Oftentimes these items are found in chewing gum. Sugarless gum does help increase saliva production and wash away the bacteria.
As with all these sugar substitutes, be sure you are okay with the taste, as some people find the taste more acrid than sweet.
Your Mouth Health Affects Your Whole Body Health
How you care for your teeth is equivalent to taking care of your body. Did you know that there is a high correlation between how healthy your heart is, and how well you take care of your teeth?
Without proper oral care, your teeth can also build up plaque, which has been shown to be a contributing factor in failing cardiovascular health. Whole-body health takes cooperation between your diet, your exercise, and personal care such as brushing your teeth. KURU is here to help in a big way.
Along with brushing and flossing, the best ways to improve your heart health is to eat healthy and to have an exercise plan that includes aerobic activity to get your heart rate up and your blood pumping.
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