We all love that fresh, clean feeling when we’ve just brushed out teeth. It might not be possible to be that minty fresh all day long, but there is something we can do to keep our mouths clean.
We need to make wise choices about what we eat! Healthy foods and careful snacking can help us keep a clean mouth and enjoy its benefits all day long.
Let’s take a closer look at why clean diets equal fresh teeth!
What a Clean Mouth Needs
Since our childhood, you’ve been trained to clean your teeth. But clean your mouth? That’s something we probably don’t understand so well.
To understand this, we need to think about the effect of food on our teeth. While we probably brush morning and night and floss regularly, most of us don’t or aren’t able to brush after every meal or snack. Understanding how food affects our teeth can help us make the right choices.
It’s also important to remember that our oral health contributes to our overall health. Keeping bacteria and inflammation in our mouths at bay may even support our cardiovascular health.
Calcium and Phosphorus for Tooth Enamel
We’ve often been told that sugar decays our tooth enamel, so that helps it? The answer is calcium and phosphorous.
Yogurt is a particularly good source of both. Cheese is also good for your teeth. Eating cheese also raises the pH level of the mouth, creating a less acidic environment.
Other good sources of phosphorous include poultry, pork, liver, seafood, and seeds. So next time you chow down on a handful of pumpkin seeds, know that you’re helping your mouth stay clean and healthy!
Plenty of Vitamins and Minerals
Fluoride is so good for our teeth that it is in most municipal drinking water available worldwide!
But did you know that many fruits, as well as other delicious everyday foods, contain fluoride too? These include tea and coffee, which get even more when you make them with tap water!
The fruits that include fluoride include apples, avocados, peaches, and strawberries. Including these foods in a balanced diet helps to support your oral health as well as your general health!
Vitamin A is interesting because it directly helps us to maintain a clean mouth. It does this by keeping mucous membranes healthy, which keep saliva flowing.
Good sources of vitamin A include sweet potato, spinach, carrots, and ricotta cheese. All of these foods will help to keep your mouth clean and are great for general health too.
Eating a wide range of fruit, vegetables, and nuts keeps vitamin and mineral levels high. Your gums will also thank you for eating this kind of clean diet. Gum health is very important to maintaining a clean mouth.
Get Your Saliva Flowing
We know this is not the most pleasant thing to think about but stay with us. Certain foods stimulate your body to produce more saliva. And saliva is good because it contains substances that protect your teeth against enamel loss and tooth decay.
One way it does this is simply by the force of having a liquid moving swilling round in your mouth. This helps to dislodge food particles that get caught between your teeth. Germs are also kept moving, which helps to limit tooth decay and bad breath.
What foods encourage saliva production? Foods that are crunchy and have a lot of fiber help to stimulate the salivary glands and cause you to produce more saliva. These include:
- apples
- celery
- carrots
- cucumber
- kale
All of these foods can help you to produce saliva. This helps to clean your teeth. Who knew cleaning your mouth was so delicious!
Neutralize Acid After Eating
After we’ve finished eating our meal, we could be left with a very acidic mouth. We could also have particles of food remaining in contact with our teeth.
Neutralizing the acid in our mouth after eating is wise, and we can do this in several ways. A small piece of cheese will do the trick, as will a glass of milk or some plain yogurt.
A nice celery stick or a carrot chewed after eating is also a great way to clean and neutralize your mouth.
Drink Plenty of Water
What we drink forms an important part of our diet. There is one drink that is great for cleaning your teeth and keeping a clean mouth – water.
Drinking plenty of water helps to keep your body in general functioning well. If you drink water in place of sugary soda or fruit juices, it will also benefit your teeth.
Drinking water after you eat flushes out your mouth. This helps to remove food particles that could otherwise remain and promote tooth decay.
Foods to Avoid
To maintain clean teeth and a clean mouth, there are certain foods we should definitely avoid. These include foods that are very low in nutrients but very high in sugar.
Soda-containing sugar is something that it is good to avoid as much as possible. Not only does soda contain high levels of sugar, but it is also acidic. This is a perfect storm for teeth, creating the perfect breeding ground for tooth decay.
Snacking is also problematic. While some snacks, such as the foods mentioned above, maybe healthy, it’s better to avoid snacking wherever possible. And we certainly want to avoid snacking on food such as pastries, cookies, and candy loaded with sugar.
Maintain a Clean Mouth for Better Health!
What we put into our mouths sure makes a difference in how we feel! It’s great to have a clean mouth, and eating a clean diet supports this.
So if your diet needs a vitamin boost, try including some of the delicious fruits and vegetables mentioned above in your diet.
Your mouth will thank you, and so will your dentist! At Katy Gentle Dentists, your oral health is our primary concern.
Contact us to schedule your appointment today!