Nutrition Tips For Great Oral Health: 5 Things To Know

Nutrition Tips For Great Oral Health: 5 Things To Know – Flossing after meals and brushing your teeth using a fluoride-enriched toothpaste are both important in maintaining oral health. Apart from these practices, nutrition also plays a crucial role.

Oral Health: The Integral Role Of Nutrition

Eating nutrient-rich food helps you enhance your teeth and gum health. These commonly include vegetables, protein-packed dishes, fruits, and grains. You also need to eat dairy, such as yogurt, cheese, low-fat milk, and fortified soymilk, as these are known to provide the nutrients needed to strengthen the bones, including teeth.

Likewise, foods that contain phosphorus, such as fish, eggs, nuts, dairy, and beans, could help strengthen your teeth. Vitamin-packed sources may also enhance the health of your gums.

To know more of these, consider the nutrition tips for maintaining great oral health.

1. Avoid Sugary Foods

Sugary foods, such as cakes, candies, and sweetened beverages, aren’t optimal for your oral health. Consuming these could foster bacterial growth in your mouth. If not treated immediately, this can prompt acid attacks that can gradually dissolve the tooth enamel, making your teeth vulnerable to dental erosion and tooth decay. Too much consumption of sugary foods negatively affects the health of your teeth.

Hence, if you’d like to eat sweets, make sure to consume them sporadically or try to eat them alongside other dishes to reduce acid exposure. With good dental care practices and irregular consumption of sugary foods, you may recondition your teeth.

If you develop any major dental problems as a result of these, consult your dentist. They may suggest dental implants or other similar oral procedures as the most preferred treatment option for you. Talking to an expert right away can help you address your concerns and avoid other potential issues.

2. Drink More Water

Replacing acidic and sugary drinks with water is crucial when you’re working towards improving your oral health. Tea, coffee, and soft drinks contain chromogens and tannins that stain your teeth over time. Smoothies, fruit teas, juices, and wine also contain acids that are reported to soften the tooth enamel, especially when you consumed them regularly.

To lower your risk for teeth stains and enamel erosion, increase your water intake and drink less sugary or acidic beverages. Keeping yourself hydrated helps flush out food particles that may harbor harmful bacteria in your mouth. Since water has a low pH level, drinking more of it is an excellent way to neutralize the acid in the mouth.

3. Eat Dried Fruits Alongside Other Foods

Eating dried fruits is beneficial because they’re healthy and have high amounts of minerals, vitamins, and fiber. However, you need to consume them properly to ensure that your oral health isn’t compromised and to potentially, reap their nutritional benefits.

Since dried fruits are sticky, they tend to remain on teeth longer than fresh fruits. As a result, your mouth may be more susceptible to bacterial growth. This will definitely make your teeth prone to decay.

To prevent this, consider eating dried fruits together with other foods. These include but isn’t limited to vegetables, nuts, crackers, yogurt, cereals, cheese, and crackers. If you decide to drink fruit juice, consider taking it alongside your meal, such as breakfast. Since fruit juice is highly concentrated with acid and sugar, control your intake to 150 milliliters (mL) per day.

4. Increase Your Vitamin Intake

To enhance oral health, make sure to regularly take your vitamins. This could be mainly due to the high intake of processed foods. While all vitamins play an essential role in supporting oral health, you need to pay more attention to your vitamin D intake.

Vitamin D is responsible for enhancing phosphate and calcium absorption in the body. These nutrients are critical in building and strengthening tooth enamel. Vitamin D deficiency is reported to increase the risk for tooth decay.

Moreover, the other essential vitamins you should include in your diet is vitamin A. This nutrient accelerates healing, maintains healthy gums,  and prevents mouth dryness.

You can also boost your intake of vitamin C to fight against gingivitis and strengthen soft tissues in the mouth. That said, treating gingivitis can be simple in its early stages, but it’s always best to consult your dentist if you’re noticing major symptoms already.​​​​​​​ Also, try to include vitamin K in your diet to support healing, prevent bone frailty, and even achieve smoother skin.

5. Eat Foods That Can Whiten Your Teeth

Yes, you’ve read that right. There are foods for whitening teeth. Some of these foods include apples, strawberries, and milk. Not only do these foods give your body essential nutrients, but they can also help make your smile healthier, whiter, and brighter.

For instance, simply eating an apple can help whiten your teeth. Chewing an apple allows for good cleansing exercise and scrubbing for your teeth.In addition to that, apples have an enzyme called malic acid, which can help in naturally whitening your teeth and removing stains. It also helps in boosting saliva production, especially for people with dry mouth, which can then help prevent tooth decay. Malic acid can be found in strawberries too.

Dairy products such as cheese, milk, and yogurt can also aid in naturally whitening your teeth. These foods are rich in calcium and lactic acid, which can not only help whiten your teeth but strengthen them as well.

But of course, if these foods can help whiten your teeth, some foodscan stain your teeth too.Examples include blackberries, cherries, blueberries, pomegranates, and tomato-based foods or sauces, while drinks that can stain teeth include teas, sodas, red wine, and fruit juices.Since it can be difficult to completely avoid these foods, always brush your teeth after having them to avoid permanently staining your teeth.

Final Thoughts

Apart from brushing, flossing, and visiting your dentist regularly, nutrition plays a crucial role in improving oral health. Healthy food promotes good oral health by strengthening your teeth and gums. On the other hand, poor nutrition exposes your teeth to the risk of enamel erosion and tooth decay that could result in infections.

To achieve excellent oral health, make good food choices and freely apply the four tips above.