Snacking For healthy Teeth The times in between the three standard meals of the day are often filled with snack foods. These snacks give people much needed energy, a friendly taste in the mouth, and something to look forward to in the dragging afternoons at work. But many of the most popular snack foods on the market are not healthy for one’s teeth. The reason they are unhealthy for teeth is because they are typically filled with sugar.
Sugar Is Not the Best Option The cookies, cakes, and candies that comprise the most common snack foods, or at least children’s favorite snack foods, are all stuffed with sugary ingredients that can lead to tooth decay. Tooth decay can occur when sugar is introduced into the moth because of naturally existing bacteria in the human mouth. This bacterium inside human mouths creates an acid byproduct after consuming sugar. And it is this acidic byproduct given off by bacteria in the mouth that eats away at tooth enamel and leads to tooth decay. While snacking does not need to end for a person to keep their teeth healthy, the sugary snacks that are frequently consumed throughout the day will need to go before a person can have truly healthy teeth. Family dentists in Santa Cruz wish to remind their patients what tooth-healthy snacks are available and which snacks will be most beneficial to their oral health moving forward. The first snacking change that many will need to undergo is to eliminate sugary snacks from the daily rotation. As discussed, these snacks have the ability to decay teeth and lead to other oral problems.
Better Snacking Options Instead, a person should consider snacking on such food items such as fruits and vegetables. Many of these food items can be a tasty substitute for the sugary snacks that are typically eaten. Broccoli, celery, cucumbers, olives, apples, oranges, carrots, pears and pineapples are all examples of healthy snack foods that a person can eat between meals. Some may think of the fruit in this list unhealthy for teeth because of the natural sugar that exists in them. While it is true that natural sugars found in fruits and vegetables can be equally damaging to teeth, often times the natural water and liquid found in these same foods will help to mitigate their sugar content by washing away the sugar from the teeth. But if these foods are still suspect, one can consider other healthy snack food options beyond fruits and veggies.
Nuts, like cashews and almonds, are common and healthy snack foods if they are not artificially sweetened or processed. Likewise, seeds like sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds can serve as a healthier snack substitute. The basic rules to remember when deciding what snack foods are healthy for the teeth are to choose those snacks that are low in sugar and to eat a variety of low fat snack foods from the basic food groups. By choosing to do this, a person and a family will be able to turn traditionally unhealthy snack time into teeth healthy snack time.