If you’re looking for a way to boost your dental health, you may want to consider making some small changes to what you’re eating everyday. While daily and professional dental cleanings are clearly the most important parts to maintaining a healthy smile, you can further improve your bacteria-fighting power through your diet.
You’re probably thinking that you already know how to get healthier teeth by controlling what you eat—we’re all supposed to be avoiding sweets and processed sugars, right? While this is correct, and undoubtedly minimizing your sugar consumption can help your teeth and gums, there are other foods that you can eat that will actively improve your oral health.
Take foods rich in vitamin C, for example. Vitamin C boosts immunity, and can improve your all wellness, but it can also help you keep healthy gums. Vitamin C is critical for collagen production. The way that your gums stay healthy and resilient is through strong collagen. So when you eat or drink substances with vitamin C, you help your gums and oral connective tissues stay resilient.
Sometimes it’s not only important what’s in the food, it’s also important how the food feels, or what form the food takes. For example, crunchy vegetables (like carrots, celery, and cucumbers) are obviously healthy for you, but they’re also good for oral health specifically because they are crunchy. When you chew on a crunchy carrot, you actually scrape plaque off of your dental enamel as you chew. This gives your teeth a mini cleaning of sorts, as well as stimulating saliva production.
As you can see, the foods you eat are important to your overall well being and your oral health, specifically. Try snacking on crunchy vegetables in the middle of the day to keep your mouth cleaner and your breath fresher. Make sure to consume enough vitamin C throughout the day for maximum gum health. These tips are quite simple, but employed regularly they can make a big difference. If you want to learn more or schedule a consultation with our Glendale dentists, give our Glendale dental office a call!