Which Foods Should You Avoid for Oral Dental Health?

Your diet plays a fundamental role in improving and maintaining your oral health. The food you eat daily could either jeopardize or improve your dental health.

For example, if your daily diet mainly consists of starchy and sugary foods or beverages, your oral health will turn for the worst over time. Starchy and sugary foods promote dental health issues such as tooth decay, cavities, and gum disease.

If your diet consists of plenty of green leafy vegetables and fruits, your oral health will improve because these are among the best foods for oral health. Our dentist in Chantilly understands that one of the fundamental oral care tips is eating right. That’s why we emphasize the importance of watching what you eat.

Let’s take a detailed look at some foods you should steer clear of to protect your oral health.

Foods to Avoid!

Certain food choices we make in our everyday lives can bring about oral health issues that negatively impact our overall well-being.

Some of the foods and beverages you should avoid indulging in to improve and maintain good oral health are:

• Chewy Candies

Candy, in the first place, is bad for your teeth, but chewy candy is in its category. Chewy candy is packed with sugar that causes tooth decay and clings to the teeth.

In other words, chewy candy can cause even more tooth decay than other forms of candy. It’s advisable to opt for other forms of candy (if you are craving something sweet), which can be washed off easily, like some dark chocolate.

• Dried Fruits

Fruit is one of the healthiest foods you can add to your daily diet. They have nutrients and vitamins that can improve and maintain your oral health. So it will be easy to assume that, like fresh fruits, dried fruits are good for your oral health. However, this is not the case.

Dried fruits are more concentrated in sugar and stick to teeth and any crevices on the teeth. So, if you love consuming dried fruit over time, you could develop cavities due to tooth decay.

• Soft Drinks, Sodas, and Carbonated Drinks

These drinks are packed with sugar and artificial sweeteners. Drinking large amounts of carbonated sodas and soft drinks can be detrimental to your oral health. Carbonated sodas are known to cause three major negative effects: drying your mouth, producing acid that destroys your enamel, and discoloring your teeth.

So even if you are enjoying a diet soda, remember you might be skipping out on those extra carbs but still overloading your teeth with enamel eroding substances.

• Ice

You might be thinking, what is so bad about ice? After all, it’s just water. It’s not actually about what ice is made of but how hard it is in this form. Ice is a hard substance, and biting down on it can damage your enamel.

Crushing ice is one of the habits that most people unconsciously do while sipping their favorite beverages. You might be unaware of this, but this habit causes countless people to suffer from dental emergencies such as chipped, cracked, and broken teeth.

• Wine

White and red wine both contain erosive acids and tend to erode and weaken your enamel layer. Therefore, your tooth’s structural integrity will be compromised when you consume wine daily.

Apart from this, red wine contains a substance known as tannin that can stain your teeth and negatively affect your saliva production.

To try and counteract these effects of wine, try brushing your teeth before downing your glass of wine to eliminate plaque that the wine can stick on. Also, consider brushing your teeth 30 minutes after having some wine.

• Crackers

Crackers are entirely made of refined carbohydrates, and when you chew the cracker, it becomes sticky when it mixes with your saliva, clinging onto your teeth and any crevices. The refined carbohydrates are broken down into sugar and consecutively into acid that erodes your teeth’s enamel.

The bottom line is that watching what you eat is one of the fundamental oral care tips. At Chantilly Dental Arts Center, we believe that your diet plays a significant role in determining the state of your dental health. Contact us today and schedule your dental check-up.