When the phrase “oral health” comes up, the thoughts that cross your mind are brushing, flossing, and regular dental visits. Even though these components are crucial in maintaining healthy teeth, they are just half of what you need. Nutrition plays a key role in your overall oral health. The food and beverages you consume not only support the body but also have direct implications for dental health. The saying that “you are what you eat” is true to some extent, especially regarding your oral health.
The foods and beverages rich in starch, acids, or sugar that you love to binge on are also loved by the harmful bacteria in the mouth, increasing the risk of dental problems. Fortunately, nature provides a wide range of nutritious foods that provide essential minerals to strengthen the enamel, neutralize acid levels, stimulate saliva production, and scrub the teeth as you chew, acting as a natural brush. They include leafy vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and calcium- and protein-rich foods. Let us further discuss these healthy foods for your teeth below.
Dairy Products
Dentists recommend dairy products, such as milk, yogurt, and cheese, to patients for several reasons. Each of these products has excellent benefits for your teeth.
Cheese
One excellent, healthy dairy product you can consume to improve your teeth’s health is cheese. Dentists recommend cheese as a healthy food for teeth for several reasons. First, it contains high phosphate content. So, when you consume cheese, it raises the mouth pH, neutralizing the acid that dissolves enamel minerals and creates cavities that later progress to tooth decay. Therefore, whenever you consume foods rich in sugar, acids, or starch that expose the teeth to high acidity, you can consume cheese to increase pH levels.
Similarly, cheese is rich in calcium, one of the minerals responsible for enamel hardening and increasing jawbone density. Also, the product has low sugar, so it exposes the teeth and gums to less acidity.
Furthermore, cheese contains casein, a protein that combines with phosphorus and calcium to form a protective coating on the enamel, shielding it from harmful bacteria. When you consume cheese, you strengthen the jawbone and the teeth.
Yogurt
Yogurt contains calcium, which is crucial for strengthening the jawbone and enamel. Additionally, it has probiotics, essential bacteria that improve your gut health and fight harmful bacteria that cause cavities and periodontal disease. When choosing yogurt, opt for plain or natural varieties with no added sugar.
Milk
The healthiest drink for your teeth is milk. It is high in calcium, which helps keep your teeth and bones healthy. Additionally, it helps reduce mouth acidity, reducing the risk of cavities and decay. If you are lactose intolerant, you can purchase lactose-free milk. Furthermore, milk contains vitamin D, which helps transport calcium to other parts of the body, leading to increased jawbone density and stronger enamel.
Leafy Vegetables and Crunchy Fruits
Vegetables offer many nutritional benefits for teeth and the overall body. They comprise folic acid, essential vitamins, and fiber, which are important for healthy teeth and gums. Leafy greens include spinach, kale, and lettuce. The folic acid in these vegetables helps heal gum disease caused by hormonal changes during pregnancy and enhances overall gum tissue health. The high nutrients and vitamins in leafy vegetables promote stronger tooth surfaces and healthier gums.
Crunchy fruits and vegetables act as natural abrasives, scrubbing the tooth surface as you chew. They include:
- Apples and pears
When the saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” was coined, perhaps they were referring to a dentist and not a general practitioner. While an apple a day might not keep you from visiting the dentist, it has many health benefits for your teeth. Fibrous fruits and vegetables, such as apples and cucumbers, act as a toothbrush, cleaning the teeth and removing plaque and food particles.
Furthermore, the fibrous fruits and vegetables require a lot of chewing, which increases the secretion of saliva, thereby increasing the amount of saliva in the mouth, which helps to flush out the food particles into the stomach, reducing the chances of the harmful bacteria coming into contact with the teeth and the gums, thereby reducing the chances of tooth decay and gum diseases. Further, saliva washes away the malic and citric acid left in the mouth, preventing tooth corrosion. Although apples contain sugars, the sugar will not harm your teeth when you consume the fruit fresh.
Conversely, pears, especially raw ones, have a high water content and a crunchy texture that stimulate saliva production, neutralize plaque acids, and washes away food debris, thus preventing decay.
- Celery and Carrots
Celery is crunchy, firm, and stringy in texture, which makes it a good candidate for chewing, requiring a lot of chewing before you can swallow the food. The fibrous texture of the food requires a lot of chewing, which increases the flow of blood and oxygen to the gum tissue, which is essential for maintaining healthy gums. The stringy texture of the food helps to clean the teeth by getting stuck between the teeth, acting as a floss, which helps to clean the teeth by removing the plaque and the food particles from the teeth.
Like celery, carrots are crunchy and require significant chewing, which massages the gum tissue and improves blood flow. Crunching helps dislodge food particles stuck between the teeth and scrubs plaque, which is an abrasive action. Furthermore, carrots are a good source of calcium, vitamin C, and keratin, which are all good for the teeth.
- Broccoli and Kiwis
Fresh broccoli is a good source of vitamins C and K, which are essential for healthy bones and proper blood clotting. Vitamin C, a nutrient in broccoli, contains sulforaphane, a compound that helps fight mouth cancer. Their crunchy nature also makes them natural abrasives, while their kaempferol content helps shield the gums from infection. Besides, they contain iron, which helps maintain the health of the enamel.
Nuts and Seeds
Nuts and seeds, such as almonds, cashew nuts, peanuts, and Brazil nuts, contain many minerals that are beneficial to your teeth’s health. Nuts are rich in elements, such as calcium and phosphorus, that strengthen the enamel and prevent decay.
Almonds have low sugar and high protein and calcium concentrations. Additionally, they contain vitamin E, an antioxidant that protects the gums from bacteria. Low sugar levels increase saliva production, neutralizing acids and washing away debris.
Sesame and chia seeds are high in calcium and fiber. Chewing them scrubs the tooth surfaces, removing plaque and food debris.
Walnuts have all minerals and nutrients, including folic acid, fiber, magnesium, zinc, vitamin E and B6, iron, potassium, and zinc, which are critical in preserving the structural integrity of your teeth and jawbone.
Drinking Water
Water is the most basic and healthiest drink for your teeth. Your body comprises 60% water, while the saliva is 99.5% water. The water in the body distributes nutrients and minerals, keeping the skin and muscles healthy. When you reduce water consumption, saliva production reduces significantly, leading to extended contact between the teeth and harmful bacteria, which exposes you to various oral problems.
However, when you stay hydrated, you maintain normal saliva production and remove sugar debris that lingers in the mouth after eating or drinking your favorite beverage, helping protect you from cavities and decay. It is the reason dental experts encourage patients to drink water after enjoying a sugary or acidic beverage to neutralize the acid and clean the sugar debris in the mouth that could cause decay or cavities.
The reason water stands out among other drinks is that it does not contain sugar, which helps the disease-causing bacteria to multiply. Using fluoridated water is even more advantageous because fluoride is a crucial mineral in preventing cavities. The mineral strengthens the enamel of erupted teeth. So, if your tap water has fluoride, you should use it often, especially after meals or drinks, to cleanse the mouth and remineralize teeth after exposure to acid substances that dissolve enamel minerals.
Sugarless Coffee and Tea
If you love a warm drink, consider unsweetened coffee or green tea to improve your oral health. Black tea and coffee contain a naturally occurring chemical known as polyphenol that offers multiple health benefits.
First, the chemical is an antioxidant that helps combat harmful bacteria that contribute to plaque formation and increase the risk of cavities. The chemical fights the bacteria or interferes with its ability to form plaque. Without plaque, the harmful bacteria’s ability to multiply is halted, lowering your risk of cavities and decay. By eliminating harmful bacteria, polyphenol also helps fight bad breath. Secondly, the chemical helps reduce inflammation in the mouth, thereby reducing the risk of oral cancer.
Similarly, green tea and coffee have chemical components called catechins. The chemical is vital in combating toxic bacteria and reducing inflammation. The beverages also increase saliva production, helping neutralize acid that demineralizes enamel, thus preventing cavities and tooth decay.
Combining your sugar-free tea or coffee with milk adds calcium to other vital nutrients, leading to more health benefits for your teeth. However, even if you combine milk and tea or coffee and sweeten it, you will erode these health benefits because sugar is favored by harmful bacteria, turning the otherwise healthy drink into an oral disease-causing one.
Fatty Fish and Lean Meat
Fatty fish, such as salmon and sardines, are rich in phosphorus, a mineral that is crucial in shielding the tooth surface from toxic bacteria. Additionally, they contain vitamin D, a crucial nutrient for calcium absorption. Even if you take foods rich in calcium, if you do not have vitamin D, the teeth and the jawbone will not absorb the calcium, leaving you vulnerable to dry mouth and cavities. Calcium remineralizes the teeth and jawbone, helping them maintain strength and high density. With vitamin D deficiency, you will experience hypomineralization, a condition where your tooth surface softens, weakens, and becomes susceptible to dental cavities.
If you struggle with gum disease, an oral condition characterized by inflammation of the gum tissue, you can take fatty fish. They contain Omega 3, which has strong anti-inflammatory properties, reducing gum inflammation and promoting healthier teeth.
Conversely, lean meat is healthy for your teeth because it requires significant chewing, which stimulates the salivary glands and increases saliva production that cleanses the mouth of bacteria and neutralizes acids, preventing enamel demineralization. The hyperacidity in the mouth could be from an acidic beverage or from bacterial production that occurs when toxic bacteria feed on sugar and starch debris or plaque.
Foods that are Harmful to Your Teeth
Now that you are familiar with healthy food for your teeth, it is crucial to know the foods you should avoid to protect your teeth. When you consume foods and beverages rich in sugar, starch, or acids, the toxic bacteria in the mouth feed on the debris, secreting acids that dissolve the minerals that make up the enamel, causing it to soften, weaken, and increase the risk of cavities. Therefore, recognizing these foods that are harmful to your teeth is fundamental to improving your overall oral health. They include:
- Citrus fruits
- Refined carbohydrates
- Carbonated soft drinks
- Fruit juices
- Alcohol
You should avoid or limit these foods to prevent damage to your teeth.
Strategic Eating
Timing is everything. Whenever you snack, your teeth need time to recover from the demineralization caused by the acidic secretion. So, you can minimize damage to your teeth by avoiding snacking throughout the day and instead incorporating it into your meal times. It means your teeth will have little contact with acid, minimizing damage. Also, during meals, the body produces more saliva, meaning that the sugar debris will be easily washed and the acid that attacks the teeth neutralized.
Typically, the teeth experience an acid attack for twenty to thirty minutes after every sugary or acidic meal. So, if you snack throughout the day, it means the teeth are under constant attack, leading to rapid demineralization. Reducing the snack intake by eating them during meals reduces acid exposure.
Additionally, you should drink water whenever you snack to neutralize the acid and cleanse your mouth of sugar debris. After thirty minutes, you can brush your teeth. Brushing immediately when the teeth are still under acid attack increases demineralization.
Find a Skilled Hawthorne Dental Expert Near Me
Maintaining a healthy, balanced diet, along with proper oral hygiene and regular dental visits, is crucial for your teeth. If you are not sure of the healthy foods for your teeth and the foods to avoid or limit, you should consult your dental practitioner for guidance. At The Hawthorne Dentist, we will advise healthy foods to improve your teeth and general dental health. Call us at 310-775-2557 to discuss your oral health concerns.
