Preventing cavities and maintaining good oral health for you and your children is partly dependent on the food choices that you make. It’s no surprise that sugar-laden treats and processed junk food are bad for us, but they can seriously impede oral health too. And while visiting the dentist can help keep you and your family healthy, we can all improve our oral hygiene game in between visits by avoiding five foods that dentists avoid.
5 Foods Your Dentist Avoids
1. Sugar-Laden Foods
It’s no mystery that sugary foods aren’t good for our health, but they can have a seriously negative impact on our teeth too. Besides contributing to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, sugar eats away at tooth enamel and can drastically speed up decay. While you and your family don’t need to disown sugar entirely, cutting down on sweets can seriously improve oral health.
2. Acidic Foods
High-acidity foods like citrus, tomatoes, pickles, and fruit juice can raise the level of acidity in the mouth. When these levels rise, we are more susceptible to enamel loss, tooth decay, and cavities.
3. Sticky Foods
Sticky foods — think certain candy, raisins, dates, and dried fruit — tend to get stuck in the tight spaces in our teeth. If we cannot brush and floss right away, this lingering food can break down enamel and contribute to both cavities and tooth decay. If you or your child do eat sticky foods, try to brush and floss thirty minutes afterward.
4. Sugar Substitutes
Although cutting down on sugar can help protect your teeth, swapping sweets for sugar substitutes can be just as bad. Sugar substitutes tend to contain other sweeteners like honey, molasses, cane juice, fructose, and more — all of which can contribute to enamel loss, decay, and cavities. If you are looking for a sugar substitute, opt for other options like organic stevia.
5. Low-Nutrition Foods
Indulging in the occasional junk food is fine, but if your diet largely consists of low-nutritional foods, your oral health will suffer as a result. When we consume foods low in nutrition, our immune systems have to work harder to fight infection and balance the minerals and vitamins in our bodies. As a result, our teeth become vulnerable to decay and cavities.
Keep Your Family’s Teeth Healthy with the Help of Florida Children’s Dentistry
Taking a child to the dentist can be a tiring, embarrassing, and frustrating experience. At Florida Children’s Dentistry, we understand this, and that’s why we want to make the experience pleasant and fun for children. Call us today or request an appointment online.