How to Keep Your Teeth Healthy and White

Are you buying every whitening product out there? Keeping your teeth in good shape is not as hard as the television commercials want us to think. Besides brushing and flossing there are a few easy things one can do to protect their teeth and keep them white.

Drinking water is the best thing one can do to keep your teeth safe. Keeping a bottle of water with you or have a glass of water after major meals, this helps neutralize the good acids that can break down the natural enamel on your teeth. " It acts as a natural mouthwash". says Howard S. Glazer, D.D. S., a dentist in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Also try to make sure you drink water after eating starchy foods. "The starch in potatoes breaks down into sugar, and because chips stick to your teeth, there is more risk of damage," says Dr. Glazer. Mohamed A. Bassiouny of the Temple School of Dentistry in Philadelphia, PA, and his colleagues have surmised that, Whenever possible, people should rinse their mouth with water after having a soft drink, but not brush immediately as this can further damage the acid-weakened enamel." So drinking water is the best thing one can do after eating to help protect the enamel on your teeth.

The next trick is something that most people would not think of. The next time you are thinking about drinking a sugary sweet drink such a soda, also pick up a drinking straw. Sugary drinks such as soda can wear away the enamel that protects your teeth because of the citric and phosphoric acids that are contained in the drinks. Using a straw by placing it farther back in the mouth, so the liquid goes down the tongue to the back of the throat ,without rubbing against the teeth can help save your teeth. A report in General Dentistry describes two frequent soda drinkers. One, a man who drank from cans and cups, exhibited damage to the enamel of his back teeth and one side of this mouth that he favored. A girl who sipped through a straw just inside her lips developed erosions in her front teeth. Keeping the fluids away from the teeth will help limit the acid contact to the teeth minimizing damage to the enamel. So if you need to have the caffeine from a soda or if your craving a sweet sugary drink, keep a straw handy that way you can keep those teeth a pearly white.

Eat crunchy foods such as celery or apples. These foods will help remove food particles from your teeth. Getting the food particles away from the teeth like when drinking water or eating crunchy foods is the number one thing to do to protect teeth. Sticky foods will latch onto teeth and the longer it stays on your teeth the greater damage it will cause. So eat a piece or celery or have an apple for dessert to protect your pearly whites.

These are just a few tricks you can do to keep your teeth healthy and white.