When you get braces, it is extremely important to know how to care for your braces as well as take into consideration your oral health needs. This involves eating certain types of food while avoiding certain other types of foods.
Whether you’re on braces or your child has them on, make sure that you read through this list of food that are to be strictly avoided so that your braces stay clean and don’t dislodge.
Table of Contents
1. Sticky Foods
Sticky foods such as chewing gum, gummy candies, caramel, toffees and fruit chews, lollipops are best to be avoided as they adhere to the braces, making it extremely difficult to remove them without professional help. Sweet foods such as caramels and toffees can easily trap other food particles and lead to bacteria buildup, eventually leading to infections, cavities, and decays.
2. Hard and Chewy Produce
While veggies and fruits are an irreplaceable part of a healthy diet, certain fruits and vegetables such as corn on the cob, whole apple, and in general other whole fruits can be damaging to the brackets. When you dig into an apple, peer, guava, or harder fruits, and eat corn from the cob, the food is hard enough to dislodge your bracket. You will then have to go to your dentist to have it back on. Thus, when eating hard fruits, make it a point to cut them into small pieces and separate corn kernels from the cob before eating.
3. Dense Breads
While soft breads are easy to cut through without disturbing the positioning of your bracket, thicker, chewy, and denser breads not only make it difficult to slice through them using the teeth, they even easily stick to the braces and are hard to clean. In fact, having dense bread right after getting your wires tightened can even cause immense pain.
4. Crunchy Foods
Crunchy foods also put too much stress on the brackets. Besides that, the smaller particles of crunchy foods like chips, granola bars, seeds and nuts, pretzels, etc. can creep into corners and settle there, and it can be very difficult to get rid of these particles. You can instead have alternatives to these crunchy foods such as softer cookies and crackers. However, be a little careful when eating hard foods.
5. Stringy Meat
Steak, tough beef, bacon, and stringy chicken strips are all number one sources of bracket damage. While meat serves as an important source of protein, you might want to replace meat with plant-based protein sources such as beans, pulses, and tofu to get your daily dose of protein without damaging your braces.
6. Acidic Foods and Drinks
Visit any Las Vegas orthodontics clinic, and you’ll also be told to avoid acidic foods and drinks right after the orthodontist fits the braces as coffee, tea, berries, and tomato-based products can easily stain your braces over time.
While it may seem challenging in the beginning, once you find alternatives to these foods, it gets easier to manage cravings for certain types of foods that you’re not supposed to have when you have braces.
Tiffany is a Medical Student and also works as a fitness coach in part-time. She is also a writer and writes on health and fitness articles. Tiffany loves to engage with users and help them provide various useful information on General Health. She provides researched-based information and also featured on various blogs and magazines.