With the Festive Season just behind us and a New Year in view, let's focus tooth friendly foods.
Essentially, all foods that are considered healthy for your body are also healthy for your teeth!
This means eating plenty of fresh fruit, vegetables, some protein, and for most people, some dairy and grains. A variety of foods containing all the essential vitamins and minerals will help you build healthy teeth and gums from the beginning. High fibre, low fat, low sugar and low salt foods are recommended. Anything highly processed, eg foods that would not be recognizable to our grandparents as food can contain unknown or unwanted ingredients such as preservatives, colourings, flavourings, and thickeners!
A lot of people have been told that lollies and sweets are to blame for tooth decay. However, you might be surprised to find out how many other foods contain hidden sugar of one sort or another. These include fruit juices, soft drinks, mixers and coolers, honey, sultanas, breakfast cereals, pasta sauces, savoury biscuits, and soup mixes. Some sugars are 'natural' eg in honey or fruit juice, and some are 'added' usually in the form of sucrose. Other forms of sugar include glucose, fructose, corn syrup, maltose, dextrose, and corn starch . These 'hidden' sugars may not be immediately evident as quite often food acids are added to processed foods to hide the sweet taste.
It pays to be an aware consumer and read the label!
NOTE:
Natural sugars are not actually any healthier than added sugars - the decay causing bacteria don't care about the source or the physical form of the sugar. However we know that soft sticky foods are worse for tooth decay as they stick around your teeth. Also, snacking or grazing throughout the day can be problematic compared to eating less frequently eg at mealtimes, because it takes your saliva up to two hours to recover from an acid attack caused by decay bacteria. So eating withing the two hour window just continues the acid attack.
Now for the good news: Some dairy foods are actually preventative against decay eg milk, cheese and yogurt. This is due to casein - a milk protein which helps remineralise chalky spots in teeth. Their calcium and phosphate content is not a disadvantage either, as these are basic building blocks for tooth minerals.
Contact us at St Peters Dental Clinic for more information: http://www.stpetersdentalclinic.com.au/contact
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