Making Smart Food Choices Can Protect Your Teeth

Sugary snacks taste so good, but they aren't so good for your teeth or your body. The candies, cakes, cookies, and other sugary foods that kids love to eat between meals can cause tooth decay. Some sugary foods have a lot of fat in them, too.

Kids who consume sugary snacks eat many different kinds of sugar every day, including table sugar (sucrose) and corn sweeteners (fructose). Starchy snacks can also break down into sugars once they're in your mouth.

Did you know that the average American eats about 147 pounds of sugar a year? No wonder the average 17-year-old in this country has more than three decayed teeth!

How sugars attack your teeth

Invisible germs called bacteria live in your mouth all the time. Some of these bacteria form a sticky material called plaque on the surface of teeth. When you put sugar in your mouth, the bacteria in the plaque gobble up the sweet stuff and turn it into acids. These acids are powerful enough to dissolve the hard enamel that covers your teeth. That's how cavities get started. If you don't eat much sugar, the bacteria can't produce as much of the acid that eats away enamel.

How to "snack smart" to prevent tooth decay

• Read food labels. Before starting to munch, find out what's in the food you've chosen. Is it loaded with sugar? If it is, think again. Low-fat choices like raw vegetables, fresh fruits, or whole-grain crackers or bread are smarter choices.
• Avoid sticky sweets. Gooey or chewy sweets spend more time sticking to the surface of your teeth. Because sticky snacks stay in your mouth longer than foods that you quickly chew and swallow, they give your teeth a longer sugar bath.
• Pick the right time for snacking. Do you nibble on sugary snacks many times throughout the day, or do you usually just have dessert after dinner? Damaging acids form in your mouth every time you eat a sugary snack. The acids continue to affect your teeth for at least 20 minutes before they are neutralized and can't do any more harm. So, the more times you eat sugary snacks during the day, the more often you feed bacteria the fuel they need to cause tooth decay. If you eat sweets, it's best to eat them as dessert after a main meal instead of several times a day between meals.
• Brush after snacking. Whenever you eat sweets -- in any meal or snack -- brush your teeth well with fluoride toothpaste afterward.

Snack Smart Food List

Next time you reach for a snack, pick a food from the following list below or make up your own menu of non-sugary, low-fat snack foods from the basic food groups.

Fresh fruits and raw vegetables

• berries
• oranges
• grapefruit
• melons
• pineapple
• pears
• tangerines
• broccoli
• celery
• carrots
• cucumbers
• tomatoes
• unsweetened fruit and vegetable juices
• canned fruits in natural juices

Grains

• bread
• plain bagels
• unsweetened cereals
• unbuttered popcorn
• tortilla chips (baked, not fried)
• pretzels (low-salt)
• pasta
• plain crackers

Milk and dairy products

• low or non-fat milk
• low or non-fat yogurt
• low or non-fat cheeses
• low or non-fat cottage cheese

Meat, nuts and seeds

• chicken
• turkey
• sliced meats
• pumpkin seeds
• sunflower seeds
• nuts

Others (these snacks combine foods from the different groups)

• pizza
• tacos

(Adapted from "Snack Smart for Healthy Teeth," NIH Publication No. 01-1680)