When you plan to host friends and family for a holiday get-together, you'll likely spend a considerable amount of time carefully crafting the menu. The right refreshments can make the party even better, but it's useful to give some consideration to avoiding the foods that could land one of your guests in his or her dentist's chair. You can put together an impressive array of treats for your guests while still omitting some foods that put your guests' dental health at risk. Here are some suggestions of common holiday foods that are best to avoid at your get-together this year.
Assorted Nuts
For many families, a giant bowl of assorted nuts alongside a nutcracker is part of the holiday tradition. While it's hard to knock the fun of cracking your own nuts and popping them into your mouth, doing so can often be risky for your teeth. Many such nuts are hard, which could risk cracking one of your guests' teeth; additionally, someone may inadvertently chew on a small piece of shell because he or she was distracted by a conversation. You definitely want to stay away from harder nuts such as almonds. If you do wish to serve some nuts, aim for those that are softer, such as cashews.
Fruit Cake
Fruit cake is a sweet and chewy treat that you customarily only get around the holidays. Whether you often serve homemade or store-bought fruit cake, however, it's best to skip serving this type of food. In addition to being packed with sugar, which can coat your guests' teeth and increase the risk of cavities, fruit cake is often filled with dried fruit. The concern with these ingredients is that they're sticky and chewy. When people chew them, the dried fruit can easily get stuck between their teeth, becoming hard to remove with a toothbrush. This can, in turn, increase the risk of cavities.
Cranberries
If you love the holiday staple of cranberries so much that you include some form of this dish at your holiday parties, it might be time to reconsider. Cranberries are problematic for a couple reasons. Cranberry sauce contains plenty of sugar to offset the tartness of the berries, which can increase your guests' risk of cavities. Additionally, the dark color of cranberries can easily contribute to the staining of people's teeth, much in the same way as red wine. If you can't live without cranberries, try white cranberries — they won't risk staining.
For more holiday tooth-care tips, contact yourfamily dentist.
Share4 November 2016
When the bottled water craze began, I jumped on the bandwagon with everyone else who was drinking water from bottles instead of from the tap. I wasn't sure why bottled water was healthier, but I liked the taste. When I went for my next dental check-up, I had my first cavity in a while, so I had it filled and didn't think much of it. Well, I had two more during my next check-up after that, and I began trying to think of why my teeth were suddenly going bad. The only change in my habits was the switch to bottled water, so I made the switch back to tap water and my teeth began to improve. I created this blog to encourage others who have begun getting cavities suddenly to look into their changes in habits. They may find they made a change similar to mine.