When it comes to preventing oral health problems, dental professionals spend a lot of time talking about dental hygiene. Brushing and flossing daily are critically important to your oral health, but there are also other things to consider when it comes to your overall oral health. For one, your diet can potentially make a massive difference in the quality of your smile. If you’re curious, here’s how you can adopt a diet that can help your smile shine!
Foods that are Good for Your Smile
You may have in mind some foods you’d need to cut out, but there are actually quite a few that can better your smile just by mixing them into your diet.
For one, crunchy vegetables can be enormously helpful in keeping your smile in good shape. Many of them, like carrots, contain helpful vitamins that are important to the continued health of your smile. When you bite into crunchy vegetables, they may also scrape away problematic plaque deposits that would ordinarily contribute to oral health problems.
Some foods have been demonstrated to prevent the growth of plaque deposits on the teeth in the first place, for any one of a myriad of reasons. Green tea, for example, has been proven to have antibacterial effects, as well as some anti-inflammatory properties that can help deal with gum disease.
Surprisingly, cranberries also have some strong clinical evidence supporting their ability to hinder the formation of plaque deposits, by preventing bacteria from binding together.
Foods that You Might Want to Avoid
While bringing these foods into your diet can be excellent for your oral health, there are also plenty of foods that you may want to avoid if you want to keep your teeth in good condition.
You’re probably well aware that sugar can cause problems for teeth, but you may not know that that extends to starchy foods as well, which are often converted into sugar by saliva.
You should also make it a point to steer clear of sticky or gummy foods that can glom onto your teeth, further increasing the damage that they do to them.
Indulging in these foods occasionally is fine; just make sure that you follow them up with a thorough brushing and flossing to keep your smile in the best shape possible!
About Our Practice
At Hiner Family Dentistry, we pride ourselves on being a practice that can help patients of all ages get the oral healthcare they need in a calming, comfortable environment. Dr. Reagan Hiner and Dr. Matthew Hiner are a team of husband-and-wife dentists who will work together tirelessly to ensure that whatever it is your family needs, you can get it.
If you have any questions about how to adopt a tooth-healthy diet, we can be reached at our website or by phone at (713) 589-5539.