Food & Drink 
Oral Cancer and Nutrition: Can Plant-Based Diets Prevent Cancer?(0)
37,000 people are diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal cancer every year. That’s more than 100 people per day. Only an estimated half of those diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal cancer will be alive in five years. Guess how many people die from oral cancer every single day. 24 (Source: American Cancer Foundation.) Guess how many [...]
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Is Chewing Gum Good or Bad For Your Teeth?
You may have heard that chewing gum is bad for your teeth and that chewing gum is good for your teeth. So what’s the answer? Chewing gum can be good and bad for your teeth depending on what type of gum you chew. Gum can basically be classified into three different types based on how [...]
Four Factors That Determine If Acids Will Dissolve Your Teeth
In 1942, the average American drank the equivalent of 60 12-ounce cans of soda per year. In 2004, that number increased nearly 10-fold to 576 12-ounce cans of soda per year. That averages out to 1.6 12-ounce cans every day for each man, woman, and child in the United States. (Source) Although soda pop is [...]
Xylitol: What It Is and How It Protects Your Teeth
The sweetener xylitol has been getting a lot of attention lately due to its ability to fight plaque and its harmful effects on dogs. If you’re curious about what xylitol actually is, if it has any nutritional value, and how it helps your teeth, then this article is for you! What is Xylitol? Xylitol is [...]
Eat Dessert First for Healthier Teeth
Remember how your parents always made you eat your vegetables first before you could eat your dessert? That may not have been the best thing for your teeth. Here’s a story to illustrate this point: Let’s say you go out to the Olive Garden for some great Italian food. After dinner, you order some Black [...]
How to Drink Soda Pop and Keep Your Teeth Happy
Some dentists might say that in an ideal world, nobody would drink soda pop. In my view, in an ideal world, everyone would drink soda pop — it just wouldn’t hurt your teeth! Of course, we don’t live in that ideal world and it’s important to know that soda pop does pose a serious threat to [...]
Can Kids Eat Halloween Candy & Have Healthy Teeth?
If you’re like most parents, you probably took your kids out trick-or-treating this past weekend. Halloween candy can harm your kids’ teeth, but there are certain ways to minimize the harm. About 15 years ago, dressed as a gangster, I walked up to a dimly lit house and opened my pillow case and said “Trick [...]
Should Dentists Buy Back Halloween Candy from Kids?
Over the past week, I’ve heard of a few dental offices around the United States that are offering to buy back Halloween candy from kids. The going rate is $1 per pound. The dentists then take this candy and ship it overseas to American soldiers that are sacrificing for our country. Here’s an article that [...]
What Happens In Your Mouth Every Time You Eat or Drink
Did you know that you are the life of the party? Every time you eat fermentable carbohydrates, millions of bacteria in your mouth shout for joy as they snack on the food that you are eating. There’s just one small problem: after they’re done eating, they need to use the restroom. Since there’s no toilet [...]
Don’t Let Your Teeth Get Hurt This Cold & Flu Season
Three weeks ago I got a cold. I was just getting over it when we went up to Maine, and right when we got back I got sick again. I’m finally getting better, but my oral hygiene has been less than stellar over the past few weeks! Now that the days are getting colder and [...]
How Chewing Ice Cubes Hurts Your Teeth
Have you ever eaten all of your dinner, drank all of your water, and then flirted with the last remaining edible item on the table – the ice in the bottom of your glass? If so, you’re not alone. Many people chew on ice cubes for a variety of different reasons. You may think this [...]
Can Fibrous Foods Like Celery and Apples Clean Your Teeth?
The internet is filled with what I like to call “Dental Pollution.” There are a lot of half-truths and myths about oral health. One of the reasons that I started Oral Answers was to provide facts and truths about dentistry to those that have unanswered questions about their oral and dental health. To dispel these [...]
16 Delicious Snacks That Your Teeth Will Like
It seems that dentists and dental hygienists have a bad reputation for naming off a bunch of foods that aren’t very good for your teeth. Well… to get rid of that reputation, I’ve decided to do the opposite. Here’s a list of 16 snacks that you’ll enjoy almost as much as your teeth will: List [...]
Is Fruit Good or Bad for Your Teeth? It Depends.
Many people have asked me whether or not fruit is bad for your teeth. The answer is that it depends. We all know that the main reason people like fruit compared to vegetables is because of the sugar. The question is, does the sugar in fruit cause tooth decay? There are six main ways that [...]
50 Names for Sugar that Food Makers Use to Trick You
Did you know that the average American eats nearly 100 pounds of sugar per year? For teenagers, the number climbs to nearly 150 pounds per year. Why do we eat so much sugar? Perhaps one of the reasons is that it is so prevalent in the food we eat. Sugar is used to enhance the [...]
The Vipeholm Study: Learning About Dental Cavities
The Vipeholm Study was a study that dental researchers conducted on a group of mentally challenged residents of the Vipeholm Institution. Dental researchers fed mentally handicapped people lots of sugar for the purpose of studying tooth decay. Unfortunately, many of these patients ended up losing their teeth to cavities. Although the study is tragic and [...]
Children’s Medicine: How to Keep Cough Syrup from Causing Cavities
A quick walk down the aisle at your local pharmacy will reveal an alarming amount of sugar. Most medicine that we give our children is combined with a thick syrup made up of sugar and corn syrup. For more information on the different sugars that hurt your teeth, read my article about the five sugars [...]
Alkaline Water: Is It Good For Your Teeth?
Have you heard of alkaline water? If not, you might soon hear about it from a multi-level-marketer near you. Earlier this week, I talked with an alkaline water marketer for five or ten minutes about it. He talked about all of the benefits of alkaline water and even called it “nature’s water” or something similar [...]
What Fermentable Carbohydrates Are & How They Hurt Your Teeth
Fermentable carbohydrates. You may have heard that phrase before and wondered what it means. In this article, I’ll let you know what fermentable carbohydrates are and how they can hurt your teeth. What Are Fermentable Carbohydrates? Carbohydrates are sugars and starches. They are a major source of energy for humans. When we something with sugar [...]
Is Sparkling Water Bad For Your Teeth?
Lately, my wife and I have been trying to kick our habit of carbonated beverages with sugar and artificial sweeteners. To fill the void, we’ve started sampling various types of seltzer water, club soda, sparkling water, and carbonated mineral water. Our favorite, although a bit expensive for our tight dental student budget is Perrier Lemon [...]
How to Identify Acidic Foods and Drinks
Food companies are able to sneak acids into lots of the foods we eat. On Wednesday, I wrote about the three dangers of eating acidic, sticky candy such as Sour Patch Kids. I listed a small number of acidic candy that it would be wise to consume in limited amounts. The major problem with that [...]
Sour Patch Kids: Your Teeth’s Worst Enemy
One of my favorite things to eat as a kid was Sour Patch Kids. I remember the first time my mom gave me some; it was love at first taste. I would save up my money and buy them in bulk at the store. That was part of the blissful innocence of childhood. If I [...]
The Five Sugars That Hurt Your Teeth
Did you know that carbohydrates are really sugars? Carbohydrates are just long chains of sugars hooked together. Fortunately, the bacteria in our mouths can’t break down those long chains of carbohydrates. However, the bacteria in our mouths do love to feed on the monosaccharides (simple sugars) and the disaccharides (sugars that are links of two [...]
Nine Drinks that Can Dissolve Your Teeth
Although teeth are the hardest parts of our bodies, they do have one weakness: they can be easily destroyed by acid. Acid is the weapon of choice that plaque use to ruin our teeth and they can be found in many of the drinks that we consume. The acidity of substances is measured using the [...]
Hi, I'm Tom. I'm currently a 4th year dental student in the USA. I started this blog to help people take better care of their teeth. You can