Warnings Against These Common Foods and Beverages
As an experienced Vero Beach and Melbourne, Florida dental practice, community members routinely ask about harmful foods and beverages when it comes to their teeth. While some are openly infused with sugar and widely recognized as bad for your teeth, others are not so easily identified. In fact, many of the typical items everyday families include in their diets have a negative impact on oral hygiene.
At Vero VIP Implants and Periodontics, we work closely with families to ensure you have the information necessary to make informed decisions about your dental health. We hope highlighting the following harmful foods and beverages that can negatively affect your teeth, proves helpful.
1: Soda Ranks Among Worst Drinks For Teeth
Although Americans are keenly aware of how bad soda is for our teeth, gums, and overall health, soft drink consumption still hovers around 38 gallons per person annually. The combination of high levels of sugar and acids erode tooth enamel while feeding harmful bacteria. The amount of soda people drink continues to decline, but not fast enough to avoid having a cavity filled by a dentist at Vero Implants and Periodontics.
2: Red & White Wine Almost Equally Harmful To Teeth
White wine tends to be more acidic and, thus, better at destroying tooth enamel. That would seem to leave wine enthusiasts with red as a more healthy choice. Not so fast. The bad news is, red wine also has the sugars and acidity to damage enamel. While generally less efficient than white, red wine adds insult to injury by staining your teeth.
3: Fruit Juices Are Not Always Healthy For Teeth
The old saying that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” doesn’t necessarily hold true with fruit beverages. Many of the pre-packaged products in the supermarket are laced with sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Even the brands that advertise “no sugar added” can be so highly concentrated that the acids endanger tooth enamel. While sugar-free juices are an excellent way to take in necessary vitamins, consider adding water to them. A savvy alternative may just be to eat an apple a day.
4: Sports Drinks Do More Than Amp-Up Your Energy
Marketing efforts behind sports drinks push the narrative that they deliver quick hydration and bursts of energy. Aside from the electrolytes that support hydration, there’s plenty of not-so-healthy additives that attack tooth health. Rife with heightened acid levels and sugars, sports drinks make teeth vulnerable to decay, cavities, and can be a catalyst for gum disease.
5: Coffee Stains Otherwise Bright Teeth
About 60 percent of adult Americans drink 2-5 cups of coffee every day, which is not good news for your teeth. Coffee has a high acidity level that wears away at tooth enamel. Additionally, the dark blend doubles down by staining even healthy teeth. In terms of a smile that brightens a room, drinking too much coffee dims the lights.
6: Bread Transforms While Chewing
Some people steer away from bread because they are high in carbohydrates. While that may be a smart weight-watching strategy, what transpires inside your mouth is another good reason to sideline loaves of bread. When you chew bread, the product mixes with saliva and dissolves starches into sugars. What compounds this problem is that the mushy substance tends to get stuck between teeth and difficult to brush crevices. Seemingly healthy slices of bread turn into a tooth decay paste.
7: Dried Fruits Reverse Healthy Benefits of Ripe Ones
The process of drying fruits purges much of the water content in apricots, prunes, and transforms grapes into raisins. What doesn’t go away are the sugars. In fact, they are condensed to make otherwise healthy fruits a type of candy. With a gummy bear’s consistency, eating dried fruits results in sugar getting stuck between teeth just like some candies.
Contact A Nutrition-Conscious Dentist at Vero Implants and Periodontics
As a dentist in Melbourne and Vero Beach, FL that family members count on for proactive care, Vero Implants and Periodontics urges you to take a look at your diet. Avoid excessive sugar and acidic products to support positive dental hygiene. As this overview highlights, it can be difficult to determine harmful foods and beverages that can damage tooth enamel, cause staining, and create gum disease vulnerabilities. However, we hope we have provided you with some useful tips. If you have questions, are overdue for a checkup, or need to schedule a cleaning, contact Vero Implants and Periodontics today.