4 tooth-friendly on-the-go snacks for you and your braces

Category: Food · 2 May 2019

Most people are constantly on the go, and food is a never-ending topic. From a dental and health point of view, many industrially produced snacks are harmful. Our four tips help keep your teeth healthy in the long term. Avoid tooth damage and decay – stay healthy.

4 healthy snack ideas for on the go and your braces

When it comes to dental health, the “snack on the go” is a problem. If you chew sweets, sip fizzy drinks and give your teeth no chance to remineralise, tooth decay quickly sets in.

Can’t think of anything healthy to buy when you’re out and about? Here are a few tips:

1. Plan ahead

Simply prepare your snacks in advance. If you take pre-portioned snacks with you, there’s a much smaller chance that temptation strikes and you end up falling back on something unhealthy.

Here’s what you can pack:

Fresh fruit: Spring is here, and with it lots of vitamin-rich fruit. Try strawberries with bananas and, later in the season, fresh blueberries and raspberries. The water content of fresh fruit makes it a tooth-friendly choice.

Watch out for the sugar in dried fruit – it is very concentrated. Dried fruit can also stick to your teeth like sweets.

Vegetable sticks: Some of the best are carrots, celery or cherry tomatoes. If you like to experiment, why not try broccoli, cauliflower or kohlrabi? You can also pre-cook these. Grocery shops now also offer pre-cut vegetables or packs of cherry tomatoes or sugar snap peas, which are handy.

Homemade kale crisps: delicious, full of healthy fats, easy to make and ideal to take with you. Bake some kale crisps!

Nuts: Almonds, cashews or pecans. Nuts act as a buffer against sugar that sticks to your teeth. If you’d like to treat yourself to a chocolate bar, you can nibble on some nuts afterwards.

2. Make your own snack mixes

An idea for your own tasty trail mix:

Almonds
Cashews
dark chocolate drops or, even better, cacao nibs
Pumpkin seeds
Dried coconut slices

3. Reach for healthier alternatives

Instead of buying a sweet bar at the checkout, you can stop by the chilled section. Pick up:

Yoghurt (please check the sugar content)
Pre-packed salads
Hard-boiled eggs (bonus points for free-range eggs rich in vitamin K2)
Cheese slices
Fruit cups
Pre-packed, cut vegetables

Petrol stations sometimes also have a kind of “health” section. There you’ll find:

Smoothies
Juices
Dried meat (jerky)
Low-sugar protein bars
Sugar-free chewing gum with xylitol (remineralises the teeth)

4. Choose healthier drinks

Look out for unsweetened alternatives to fizzy drinks & co., such as:

unsweetened tea
still & sparkling mineral water
kombucha (low in sugar)
sugar-free or low-sugar drinks sweetened with stevia (not carbonated diet fizzy drinks)

Which foods / habits should you avoid from a dental point of view?

Constant snacking puts a strain on tooth enamel: if you want to nibble on something sugary, it’s better to eat the whole portion in one go.

Flavour enhancers, preservatives, sweeteners, synthetic colourings, artificial fats and chemicals are often hidden in industrially processed foods.

Many of these ingredients promote inflammation and affect the body’s pH. Tooth decay and gum disease are also diseases that occur for specific reasons.

If you avoid these acid-forming ingredients, your body (and especially your mouth) can fight harmful, decay-causing bacteria more effectively.

Conclusion: prepare your own snacks and go for unprocessed foods. Good for your teeth, good for your health.

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