Sugary foods sure do taste good, but the only good they are doing is electrifying your taste buds. The ugly truth about sugar is it causes weight gain, high cholesterol levels, cardiovascular disease and even affects your mental awareness. Even worse, sugar is a big factor when it comes to tooth decay and periodontal disease. We’re marking up sugar to be the bad guy, because it is!
Of course, you cannot cut sugar completely out of your life. It exists in plenty of processed foods, not just in candy and sodas. You’d have to go cold-turkey on a lot of your favorites, including cereals, saucy foods, potato chips and especially ice cream. Even healthier options like apples and citrus fruits have a high sugar concentration. Sugar is bountiful in our diets, but if you cut down the sugar intake, your oral and overall health will both see a huge difference!
How to Cut Back on Sugar
Cutting down on sugar is pretty easy if you think about it. You control what type of foods and drinks go into your mouth after all. So, let’s take a look at some of the most common sugar fiends that exist.
Let’s start with sodas! Sodas make the most sense. Let’s look at their sugar concentration. In a regular 12oz. can, most sodas have anywhere between 30-50g of sugar. That’s a lot! Cutting out sodas completely may cause you to go through withdrawal symptoms including anxiety, so medical experts believe a greater alternative is to start cutting your soda intake by half in moderation until soda is no longer something you’re drinking on a needless basis.
What’s wrong with sport drinks? Unless you’re an active athlete, you don’t need to be drinking sport drinks day in and day out. While they may have a high number of electrolytes, it also has plenty of sugar. Sport drinks are meant to get athletes through their sport, and you’ll often see them drink plenty of water too. If you have a sport drink regularly without combining it with physical activity, it could lead to weight gain and sensitive teeth.
Say goodbye to processed foods! Amongst the many things in your diet, cookies, cakes, pastries and breakfast cereals are notorious for their high sugar concentration. For better or worse, the only benefits these foods provide is a sugar rush that’ll have you craving sugar throughout the rest of the day. There’s plenty of other options you can try instead that’re just as fulfilling, including oat foods, unsalted raw nuts and fruit-based snacks.
Throw away the candies and sweets! One thing that we’ve grown accustomed to is a limitless supply of candy. Candy tastes good, and we keep plenty of it near us for satisfying our taste buds. That’s terrible! If you’re a candy lover, not only are you exposing your teeth to dangerous sugar amounts, but you’re ruining your sense of taste! Start cutting back on the amount of candies you eat and focus more on fresh fruits, sugar-free gum and even dark chocolate.
Ways Your Teeth Benefit from Less Sugar Consumption
Our teeth are very important to us and cutting down on sugar is perhaps one of the greatest things we can do for them. When you consume sugar, the millions of bacteria in your mouth feed on it, breaking it down into an acid that eats at our teeth. As a result, it can cause tooth decay. The funny part is, sipping from a 12oz. can is worse than chugging down a 2-liter bottle as you’re exposing your teeth to sugar longer, letting bacteria do its finest work inside your mouth.
So, by cutting down on sugar you can stop tooth decay! Other things that can help prevent tooth decay alongside cutting down your sugar consumption is chewing sugar-free gum to promote salivation, brushing your teeth before breakfast and after dinner, and flossing to clean the other half of your teeth a toothbrush can’t reach.
Sugary foods also cause teeth discoloration. It’s embarrassing to have yellow or brown teeth, especially since your smile is the biggest first impression you can make with anyone, beating out other factors such as body language, appearance and quality of speech. Teeth staining is largely due to sugary drinks, coffee and tea. Moreover, soft drinks also cause cavities, which can turn your teeth black. By cutting down sugar in your diet, you can stop your teeth from turning into weird colors.
Your significant other will love this too! If you cut down on sugar, you’ll have better breath! All those acids that are a result of sugar consumption actually smell, and it’s easy to tell. To see just how bad your breath smells after drinking a soda, wait 30 minutes and lick the palm of your hand, then smell it. You’ll definitely notice a difference!
Lastly, you’ll feel a difference in your oral health. Your teeth will feel healthier, stronger and not as sensitive, it’ll feel like weight has been lifted off of your teeth.
As a final note, you don’t have to cut our sugar completely, just consume less sugar than you have been. Sugar itself is everywhere and is near impossible to avoid. However, so long as you take the initiative to eat and drink less sugary foods you should be just fine. This also includes that you brush your teeth, floss, use mouthwash and visit the dentist on a bi-annual basis to get your cleanings done.
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