How to Feed Your Teeth
Would you like to never get another new hole in a tooth? It is possible. In fact, if you follow just a few simple rules, you are almost guaranteed to never get another cavity.
Here’s how it works. Everybody has bugs (bacteria) in their mouth. Decay happens when certain bugs turn sugar into acid. This acid causes decay by dissolving your teeth. Now the good guy is your saliva. The saliva neutralises the acid produced by the bugs. (Stick around, this will get more interesting.) However, it takes two hours after having anything with sugar for your teeth to stop dissolving. So, if you have three meals a day and nothing in between, your teeth dissolve for six hours a day. They seem to cope with this. Every snack between meals (and that includes fruit) adds an extra two hours to your dissolving time. If you’ve got enough fingers, count up how many meals or snacks or drinks with sugar you have a day. Multiply by two (use toes as necessary) and you get how much time your teeth spend rotting. If your teeth are dissolving eight hours or more per day, put a glass of water next to your bed to remind you where your dentures will be spending time at night in the future.
The absolute worst thing you can do, however, is to consume anything containing sugar within two hours of going to bed. You see, you don’t salivate much while you’re asleep, so your teeth rot all night long. I know what you’re thinking: “But I brush my teeth before I go to bed.” It doesn’t make any difference. That’s like putting your car in salt water and then trying to wash it so it doesn’t rust. The bits you can reach won’t rust. The bits you can’t get to (the bolt holes, the grooves, and the seams) will rust. Your teeth don’t decay in the areas you can easily clean. They decay in the areas that are impossible to clean, which are the areas where only saliva reaches.
Before all you chocoholics reach for the razor blades, there is a simple solution. All you have to do is bundle up all of your snacks and include them with the three major meals. Hey, presto! No more decay. If you must gorge yourself between meals, some things are OK to eat. Cheese, meat, and nuts are fine to have as snacks. You can drink water, plain milk, coffee, and tea (with artificial sweeteners). Diet soft drinks are sort of OK, but don’t overdo it.
It sounds easy, and it is. The rest is up to you.
