5 Foods we don’t recommend if you want healthy teeth
Did you know that diet is one of the key factors in having a healthy mouth and teeth?
Your diet can really impact on the healthy of your teeth and how easily they can decay.
I’ve compiled a list of foods you don’t want to be eating on a regular basis if you want to keep your teeth healthy.
As always, it’s about balance. We’re not saying you can’t eat these foods ever again, it’s about limiting your intake, and having these things during main meals, not in between meals.
- Lollies. Especially the sticky, chewy types. I’ve heard many stories from my patients that start with, ‘I was eating a minty/redskin/toffee..’. Most of these stories didn’t end too well! The stickier and chewier, the worse they are for your teeth. The sticky lollies get stuck in the grooves on the biting surfaces of your teeth, and this is often how decay starts!
- Lemons. These fruits are highly acidic, and if you consume a lot of them on a daily basis, you can actually erode the enamel from your teeth!
- Energy drinks. These drinks are high in sugar and also highly acidic. A really bad combination which will really increase your chances of getting tooth decay. Try not to consume these drinks regularly if you want to keep your teeth healthy!
- Tea or coffee with sugar. Some people have 2-4 coffees a day. When you think about it, adding sugar to these drinks multiple times a day ends up amounting to a lot of sugar! These repeated sugar hits in the day can really do damage to your teeth!
- Sports drinks, intra-work out supplements and sports gels/lollies. These types of foods are often consumed by the ‘super fit’, or elite athletes. What you do need to know is they often contain high sugar content, and are very acidic. Because they are often consumed multiple times in a day, repeated use has the potential to cause nasty and expensive dental issues.
