Feed Your Health, Starve The Plaque

When it comes to choosing snacks, many people pause to consider the best choices to lose weight, lower cholesterol levels or maintain other parameters of optimal health. Your dental health should also be considered when you ponder which foods to nosh on. Maintaining oral health is not just a matter of limiting sugar in your diet. Certain foods can actually ward off the accumulation of dental plaque and its damaging effects. Find out which foods can make or break your oral health report card at your next dental checkup.

Plaque: It's Alive

The clear, filmy coating that is found on the surfaces of your teeth is called plaque, and it is teeming with bacteria. Whenever you eat sugary foods, the bacteria in the plaque are activated to secrete acids. If the acids are not removed, they attack the enamel on your teeth, resulting in cavities. As plaque accumulates on your teeth, it eventually hardens into the yellow or brown crusty buildup called tartar, which progresses to infiltrate the gum line and cause gingivitis and periodontal disease. You can help to prevent plaque's attacks by starving the bacteria of the sweet and sticky snacks that fuel their acidic arsenal in their war on your teeth. Some common sugary triggers include the following:

• Sodas
• Fruit juices and juice drinks
• Hard candies
• Caramels
• Lollipops
• Cough drops
• Breath mints
• Raisins and other chewy dried fruits
• Baked goods, such as cookies, muffins, pies and cakes

In addition to sugar, starchy foods, such as bananas, potato chips and French fries, are converted into the destructive acid by oral bacteria.

Salvation Through Salivation

One of your body's natural and powerful weapons against the acids in your mouth is saliva. Certain foods that you eat stimulate the flow of saliva, which helps to dilute the sugars and starches, inhibiting the conversion into acid. Saliva and foods that are high in water content also serve to flush some of the food particles out of your mouth. Raw, crunchy fruits and vegetables that are high in fiber make excellent snacking choices that prompt the saliva in your mouth to go to bat for your oral health. Some examples of such foods include the following:

• Apples
• Celery
• Carrots

Chewing on sugarless gum also gets your oral juices flowing, and the gum can help to pick up tiny food particles that have stuck to the surfaces of your teeth as well.

Keep in mind that tomatoes, citrus fruits and other acidic foods can damage the enamel on your teeth. Try to relegate these foods to part of a meal instead of isolated snacking to minimize their eroding effects.

Enlist the Mighty Minerals

Calcium and phosphates are vital minerals that serve as building blocks for your teeth. Foods that contain calcium and phosphates enable the enamel to remineralize, countering some of the damaging effects that some other foods can cause. Examples of foods that are rich in calcium and phosphates include the following:

• Cheese
• Milk
• Plain or sugar-free yogurt

A Toast to Your Teeth

When it comes to beverages, drinking those recommended eight glasses of water each day is sound advice, especially if the water is fluoridated. Like calcium and phosphates, fluoride is another mineral that restores the enamel on your teeth.

Drinking green teas and black teas, sans the added sugar and made with fluoridated water, provides additional benefits for dental health. These teas contain polyphenols, which are compounds that are effective in killing and inhibiting the bacteria in your mouth.

In addition to brushing your teeth within an hour after every meal with toothpaste that contains fluoride, flossing and using an oral rinse daily and following your dentist's recommended schedule of oral examinations and cleanings, making edible choices that are mouth-friendly will go a long way toward preventing tooth decay and preserving your oral and overall health. Contact a practice, such as Pacific Ave Dental/Allan L. Hablutzel, DDS, for more information.