Top 5 worst foods for your teeth

Want to know which foods or habits to cut back on to protect your teeth? Here are five of the worst foods for your dental health. While you don’t always have to remove them completely from your diet, you should definitely restrict them for healthier teeth.

5. Ice

Some people are in the habit of chewing ice. Ice is hard, naturally, which means it can chip your enamel in the process. It’s best not to chew on ice, and if you have the habit, to try and break it as soon as possible. Shards of ice can also pierce your gums, which in turn can lead to potential infection sites.

4. Sticky Foods

A top concern for patients who have had dental work performed is the power of sticky foods to pull fillings, veneers, and bridgework free. Sticky foods, especially candies, can become lodged in your teeth as well. Most sticky foods are sticky because of sugar, which feeds the acid-producing bacteria that damage teeth as well.

3. Sour Candy

Sour candies are usually either gummy or hard, which gives you the problems you get with both sticky foods and ice, with the added bonuses of sugar, and more importantly, the chemicals that produce “sour” flavors. These chemicals are usually acidic, which means you’ll be exposing damaged teeth to elevated levels of acid, to further destroy the enamel on your teeth.

2. Soda

Take all of the problems that you would experience with sour candy, but now imagine it as a mouth rinse. That’s effectively what soda does; sodas are flavored with “artificial flavors” that tend to be acid, and “natural flavors” that tend to be derived from citric sources, which mean more acid. Combined with the fact that most people who drink soda don’t drink enough water to hydrate their oral tissue to healthy levels, and soda consumption can be a disaster for teeth.

1. Alcohol

One of the most damaging substances that people consume on a regular basis, outside of cigarette smoke. Alcohol itself dries out the lining of your mouth, which makes it more vulnerable to infection. It can damage the enamel on your teeth, weakening it. Most cocktails have high sugar levels as well.