You can get cavities from that!?! By Edan Goode

I once heard that a certain aquatic-shaped snack cracker, beloved by my children and me, was responsible for causing cavities. I was devastated. I love those things whose-brand-name-shall-go-nameless.

However, I was extremely proud and grateful for my childrens’ cavity-free streak, so I resolved to never buy said crackers again – just as soon as we finish off the ginormous container of them we had sitting prominently in our kitchen! Turns out, those little morsels aren’t the sole evil culprit they were made out to be. It is merely that they are made from white flour which has been shown to cause cavities.

This led me on a hunt to find other foods that seem innocent, but that are cavity-causers. Sure, we all know the obvious stuff like candy and soft drinks but some of the other problematic foods may surprise you.

First, a little lesson in how cavities form, courtesy of the American Dental Association :

When you eat, food passes through your mouth. Here it meets the germs, or bacteria, that live in your mouth. You may have heard your dentist talk about plaque. Plaque is a sticky film of bacteria.

These bacteria love sugars found in many foods. When you don’t clean your teeth after eating, plaque bacteria use the sugar to produce acids that can destroy the hard surface of the tooth, called enamel. After a while, tooth decay occurs. The more often you eat and the longer foods are in your mouth, the more damage occurs.

So cavities are formed by anything sugary (or that becomes sugary) that gets jam-packed into the grooves of our teeth or enrobes them and then SITS there. These include:

White-flour-based products including Bread, Crackers, Pasta and Pretzels
Cereals
Potato Chips
Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches because of the obvious sugar in the jelly but also the added sugar in some brands of peanut butter
Catsup
Salad dressing
Milk
Certain fruits and vegetables because of their natural sugars
Flavored waters

Some of these items, like fruit, veggies and milk shouldn’t be eliminated from our diets and some of them, well, would just diminish the quality of our lives if they were gone. The solution? That boring mantra: “everything in moderation blah, blah, blah.” Add to that these helpful tips to help get those bad sugars away from our teeth more quickly, preventing them from lingering and setting up shop:

Limit the number of snacks that you eat. Each time you eat food that contains sugars, the teeth are attacked by acids for 20 minutes or more.
Foods that are eaten as part of a meal cause less harm. More saliva is released during a meal, which helps wash foods from the mouth and helps reduce the effects of acids.
Chew sugarless gum for 20 minutes after a meal to help remove the sugars.
Drink water after eating to also help wash away sugars.
Of course, brush and floss regularly to keep that nasty stuff off your teeth.

For more information on dental health, visit Colorado Parent magazine. The February issue focuses on dental health in honor of Dental Health Month. Also, subscribe to this blog (at right). You won’t want to miss the upcoming blog on braces-friendly recipes. Keep smiling!