We think about our dental health when brushing and flossing our teeth, and when we go to the dentist. But during other times, dental health doesn’t tend to be at the top of our minds. Unfortunately, there are a number of commonly eaten foods and drinks that can damage our teeth in a number of ways. Regularly visiting the Upper Hunt Club Dental Centre in Ottawa will keep your teeth in good shape. But to be extra cautious, try to limit your consumption of these foods and drinks:

1. Dried Fruit
Any food with excess sugar can harm your teeth, and dried fruit is packed with it. It’s got the same amount of sugar as fresh fruit, compacted down into a concentrated form. On top of that, dried fruit is sticky, and tends to collect in the mouth and linger, leaving that sugar on your teeth.

2. Citrus
Citrus fruits like oranges, lemons, limes and any juices made from them are delicious, but they’re also highly acidic, which over time will do damage to your teeth. In addition to the acid, citrus is bursting with sugar, which also harms your teeth in excess.

3. Ice
Ice is just water, and you’d figure it would be harmless. But chewing on ice can cause big problems. Repetitively crunching on ice will put stress on your enamel and leave you vulnerable to dental emergencies like cracks and chipping. Feel free to use ice in your drinks, just don’t chew on it.

4. Soda
It’s pretty well known at this point that drinking soda isn’t all that healthy for you on a number of fronts. Add your dental health to the list. Soda provides a triple-whammy, flooding your mouth with sugar, discoloring your teeth and drying out your mouth.

5. Pickles
Pickles are preserved using vinegar, which is highly acidic. That acid content makes pickles troublesome for your teeth over time. Eating a pickle every now and again isn’t a big deal, but eating too many on a regular basis will damage your teeth.

6. Coffee
Coffee is known for staining regular drinkers’ teeth, and removing or covering coffee stains can be costly and involved. What fewer people know is that coffee also dries your mouth out. A lack of saliva in your mouth means that the natural washing process your mouth gives your teeth is ineffective, leading to cavities and other problems.

7. Any Alcohol
Drinking alcohol in excess is one of the worst ways to dehydrate your body. Dehydration affects any part of your body using water, and your saliva is a big one. If you drink too much, you’ll be dehydrated for hours if not the bulk of the next day, and during that time your teeth are especially vulnerable to decay.

8. Sour Candies
Again, we come back to the recurring culprit of sugar. But sour candies tend to be even worse than many kinds of candies. First of all, you tend to suck on sour candies for a long period of time, leading to more exposure on your teeth. Additionally, sour candies are sticky, and can easily make their way into the cracks in your teeth.

9. Potato Chips
Potato chips don’t directly contain much sugar, but they are packed with carbohydrates, which dissolve into sugar in your mouth. As you chew potato chips, you mash the wetted fragments into every crevice of your teeth, where the transformed sugar goes to work on your teeth speeding the decay process.

10. Red Wine
We already featured alcohol as a group, but red wine gets a special mention. Red wine not only has all the same negative consequences that other alcohol features, but it will also stain your teeth terribly. Regular drinkers of red wine will find their teeth going a dull, dark hue over time, leading to the necessity of dental treatments to white them.

Over the long haul, eating and drinking these foods will lead to a number of unpleasant dental outcomes. You will be more prone to cavities and root canals. Your teeth will be weaker and more vulnerable to breaking, cracking or chipping. You’ll find them start to discolour an unattractive darker shade. These kinds of problems can be remedied the Upper Hunt Club Dental Centre in Ottawa. If you find that you’ve damaged your teeth, whether by eating and drinking some of these foods or otherwise, you may want to make an appointment. Contact us today for more information on treatments and services.