Raw Foods and Tooth Enamel
dental, raw food dental, raw food teeth, raw food tooth, teeth, tooth, tooth enamel erosion
Today was kind of exciting… I went to the dentist for the first time in literally 10 years!
Now, I’ve never had cavities and I take care of my teeth (no soft drinks, for instance). But I was a little bit worried because I had started to notice some minor erosion on the sides of a couple teeth.
I generally got a clean bill of dental health — still no cavities. In fact, even after 10 years without seeing a dentist I got to skip the cleaning/polishing!
What I did learn, however, is that food acidity can contribute to tooth enamel erosion. What happens is the acidity softens the enamel. Then when you brush your teeth, even with a soft toothbrush, the enamel can get brushed away in little microscopic amounts. Similar to how, given time, rain can gradually erode away even a mountain.
I’ve definitely been eating a lot of acidic fruits. Citrus fruits like grapefruit and oranges are some of my favorites.
This is not to scare you away from eating fruit! On the contrary, fruit is in many ways the most ideal food nature has to offer.
And there are certainly worse things you can do to yourself. Carbonated soft drinks like colas are 10 times more acidic than fruit juice.
5 Ways To Prevent Tooth Enamel Erosion By Acidic Foods
Based on my visit to the dentist today, here are some simple tips I’d like to share with you in the interest of prevention. (And most apply whether you’re eating “raw foods” or not.)
- Rinse your mouth with plain water after eating fruits or drinking fruit juices. Swish around really well, and perhaps even let your teeth bathe/soak in the water for a bit. This is good advice regardless what you’ve just eating, but try to be especially diligent after acidic fruits.
- Drink, don’t sip, fruit juices. The key here is how long the acid has a chance to sit on your teeth. If you make a point of drinking your juice then immediately rinsing, that’s less time with acid on your teeth than if you sip on a fruit juice throughout the day. (Drinking fresh fruit juice rapidly is a good idea anyway as once exposed to air the juice oxidizes with time.)
- If eating multiple fruits, eat them in order from least acidic to most acidic. The reason is twofold. First, it’s the amount of time with acidity on your teeth again. When you eat the more acidic fruits last, there’s less time for the acidity to gnaw away at your enamel before you rinse with water. Second, if you ate them in the opposite order (most acidic to least acidic), the acidity would start to work to soften the enamel, which would then be more at risk of erosion from the abrasion of chewing the rest of the fruits.
- Brush at least twice a day with a soft-bristled toothbrush, and floss at least once a day. This is generally good dental advice, so it can’t hurt to reiterate it. Be sure to brush your gums and gum line too. Brush in circular patterns with the brush angled less than 90 degrees from your teeth, so that when pressed against your teeth the bristles can get up into the small space between your teeth and gums. When flossing, scrape up and down the sides of your teeth in a circular fashion. The up-and-down motion helps scrape away bacteria and other debris, while the circular motion helps move that debris out from between the teeth.
- Get regular dental checkups to discover potential problems early. Yes, I realize this is a bit do-as-I-say considering I just admitted to you that it’s been 10 years since my last dental exam. But it is good advice nonetheless, and I do plan to follow it more carefully myself in the future. With raw foods, your chompers are busy grinding up fresh fruits and vegetables… Which are a bit tougher than soft, mushy cooked foods. So dental care is especially relevant for people eating a raw foods diet.
It shouldn’t be worrisome or troublesome at all if you’re at least aware of the issue and take some quick and simple steps.
So how do you know which fruits are most acidic? A very rough rule of thumb is to go by sourness. I wasn’t able to locate a good authoritative resource on food acidity, but I did find this page.
(The vast majority of sites out there discuss the acidity/alkalinity effects of food on the body, which is a completely different matter from the acidity/alkalinity of the food itself — which is what we care about for purposes of this topic because it’s the food itself that’s coming into direct contact with our teeth. So if you do some of your own research, be aware of this distinction.)
My dentist recommended some products to help neutralize acidity.
Here’s Where You Come In
Problem is, these products contain various chemicals which I’m not entirely thrilled about. I would much prefer a more natural solution. Do you know of any natural products (tooth pastes, rinses, etc.) or techniques for helping neutralize acidity in the mouth? If so, please let me know!
I may experiment on myself by rinsing my mouth with an alkaline solution (such as baking soda dissolved in water) after eating. I haven’t looked into this at all yet though, so I’m not recommending that you do it unless you do your own research first. (Though rinsing with baking soda in water doesn’t sound very harmful.)
See Also
Do you have any other thoughts or ideas? Drop a comment below!
Raw Food Diet | Chuck July 1, 2009
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By Swayze, July 2, 2009 @ 12:32 pm
Great post!
As far as products to use, you might want to try toothsoap. I used it for many months and really enjoyed how clean my teeth felt.
Now, I just brush with water twice a day and my teeth feel very clean and are nice and white.
By outofshell, August 21, 2009 @ 8:54 am
One of those products that is good for preventing enamel erosion (though not the most natural) is a toothpaste made by Sensodyne called “Pronamel”. It has a high fluoride content to strengthen the enamel.