While brushing and flossing are key to maintaining good oral health, the food you eat plays a significant role in keeping your smile healthy. Here, we at Smile Town Langley propose 5 ideas for making your dinners more oral health-friendly.
Include Oral Health-Friendly Foods
When selecting food, avoiding processed sugar is only the beginning of considering which foods are best for your oral health.
Dairy products strengthen your teeth with calcium and wash away bacteria by promoting salivation. Garlic has strong anti-microbial properties which can fight bacteria in your mouth. And fatty fish like salmon contains phosphorus, which helps maintain your teeth's enamel.
There are countless delicious foods which encourage healthy teeth just as much as they avoid damaging teeth. Worth changing things up a bit at the dinner table for? We think so!
Drink Water With Your Meal
Soda is a major culprit in encouraging tooth decay. If your family often has soda during or around dinner-time, consider replacing it with water.
Not only will your teeth thank you for the reduced sugar and acidity, but water is excellent at washing away food bits and bacteria which build up in your mouth as your eat.
If your water is fluoridated, drinking water with dinner will also help prevent tooth decay and strengthen your teeth beyond washing your mouth.
Finish With Salad
Raw vegetable are excellent for your oral health. Carrots and celery clean your teeth as you eat them and leafy greens like kale, spinach, or lettuce are often high in Vitamin C and other oral health-friendly nutrients.
But what you eat isn't the only thing that matters, the order you eat it in can also help promote oral health at dinner.
Eating foods that clean your teeth and promote salivation like raw vegetables is most effective at cleaning your mouth after you've eaten the rest of your meal.
So, next dinnertime, consider saving the salad until last. Your mouth will thank you.
Avoid Sticky Deserts
When it comes to dessert, natural sugars are better than processed sugars. Apples, pears and oranges can all be sweet treats and eaten either raw or prepared in all sorts of exciting ways.
If you are going to have a sweet treat with processed sugars, it is better to avoid treats that remain in your mouth for a long time.
Hard-candies and sticky, chewy deserts should be avoided. And you should always have some water alongside it to help wash the sugars out of your mouth.
A Little Cup Of Tea Goes A Long Way
If you and your family are the kind of people to have tea or coffee after dinner, your teeth are thanking you!
Tea and coffee contain polyphenols, which reduce inflammation, and also help to wash any remaining food bits out of your mouth.