There are foods out there that everyone knows are bad for their teeth. It’s not really surprising when you hear that coffee and tea stain your teeth, or that candy and soda decay your teeth (and are just bad for you in general). What a lot of people don’t know is there are some foods that seem perfectly innocent but have the potential to damage your teeth in some serious ways that you wouldn’t expect. Some of them are even very healthy for you, which makes them especially dangerous if you don’t know how they can affect your teeth. You don’t have to stop eating the foods mentioned below, but it’s recommended that you either limit how much you eat or follow a proper oral hygiene routine to ensure that you’re mouth is completely clean!
Below are 5 of these sneaky foods that can cause damage to your teeth.
Ice
Ice is just water, so how bad could it really be? While drinking water has a wide range of health benefits, it’s how you consume it that makes a difference. Many people out there love to crunch on ice when they’re thirsty, want to cool off, or just want to snack on something that’s not sugary or unhealthy. Chewing on ice puts a lot of pressure and shock on your teeth, which can damage your enamel. If you can’t or don’t want to stop snacking on ice, just consider sucking on the ice instead in order to protect your teeth.
Bread
The moment that you first sink your teeth into the bread of your sandwich, the enzymes in your saliva start to break down the starches of the bread and transform it into sugars. As we all know too well, sugars and teeth don’t have the best relationship. If those sugars stay on your teeth, they can eventually start eating away at your enamel. This also applies to any other starchy food like pasta, so just make sure that you always brush your teeth and floss after you eat to make sure that you get any food that may be stuck in your teeth!
Also, be careful of crunchier breads or when eating toast, since that crunch puts pressure on your teeth and has the possibility of causing damage.
Dried Fruits
Although dried fruits like raisins, dried apricots, dried mangos, prunes and others make for a very healthy snack, they can be very tough on your teeth too. What makes them so dangerous is how easy it is for them to stick to your teeth. If any of that delicious dried fruit gets stuck on or in between your teeth, it makes for the perfect situation for cavity forming bacteria to come in and do what it does best.
Citrus
While the sweet fruits can be dangerous because of their natural sugars, citrus can be dangerous too. Citric fruits like lemons and limes are acidic and can erode you enamel. While eroding the enamel isn’t the same as tooth decay, it can make your teeth more susceptible to decay. If you find yourself adding a lot of citrus juice to your food or even throwing a lemon slice into your glass a water more often than not, think about cutting back to prevent protect your teeth.
Berries
While we’ve covered a lot of fruits already, berries pose a unique threat to your teeth. Berries like raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries are so colorful to the point where they are put in a special category called “hyper-pigmented”. As you’ve probably guessed, these hyper-pigmented fruits can stain your teeth if their food particles are allowed to rest on your teeth for an extended period of time.
Berries aren’t the only things that can stain your teeth of course. If you’re worried about staining your teeth, a good rule to go by is that if can stain a white shirt, it can stain your teeth! Also, make sure that you brush your teeth and thoroughly clean your mouth to ensure that you’re teeth stay bright!