Sugar causes plaque to grow quickly, which can cause swollen gums, decalcification, and tooth decay. Decalcification is the plaque that damages, or eats away, the enamel on your teeth. They can pull brackets off the teeth and bend wires.
Very hard foods such as ice, Jolly Ranchers and lollipops should be avoided completely — they break everything! Hard bread like bagels, chewy pizza crust, tortilla chips, hard taco shells, thick pretzels, and kettle-cooked potato chips can all wreak havoc on your appliances. But please keep eating your fruits and vegetables too!
Just remember, take small bites. You can still eat things like ice cream, brownies, cookies, cake, French fries, burger, hot dogs, and pizza just avoid the crust , no problem.
Below is a list of foods to avoid and foods you can eat. Your orthodontist will instruct you to be precautious with your eating habits when you get braces, and for good reason. Your braces have brackets, bands, and archwires that can all be damaged by various foods.
Eating the wrong foods could result in damage to the braces. Along with damage to your braces, avoiding certain foods is also essential to preventing tooth decay. This is why proper brushing and flossing during orthodontic treatment are important. This is a concern for many braces patients because when the braces come off, the staining is only around the teeth surface not covered by the braces. Due to this pattern of staining, Teeth whitening after braces is becoming increasingly popular to correct any discoloration that may have occurred during orthodontic treatment.
Here are some potentially harmful foods most patients inquire about:. Crunchy foods, such as popcorn, have the ability to loosen bands, knock off brackets, and bend wires on your braces. They also can get stuck in your braces, resulting in tooth decay or pain. Crunchy foods to use caution or stay away from include:. Hard foods to avoid include:. Doing so can bend wires or loosen brackets. Avoid foods like:. Very chewy foods, like pizza crust, can be disastrous for your brace.
They can get stuck in brackets and may be tough to eat. Items that are off-limits include:. While there are foods you need to avoid when you have braces, there are plenty of tasty foods that you can enjoy. The following are some great choices:.
Avoid eating meat off the bone, but most meats are fine if you have braces. Your orthodontist will likely recommend that you cut the meat into smaller bites as a precautionary tip. Do you love carbs? Forget about taking big bites of anything, or wolfing down your food.
The key word here is: SLOW! Stick to soft food. Eventually you'll be able to eat steak again. But for the next few weeks, lean toward soft foods. Avoid stringy foods, especially if you have a palate expander. You may love to wind your spaghetti around your fork, but for now it would be better for you to cut it into small pieces, or it will get wound around your brackets. Also, be careful with foods that get stringy when they melt, like mozzarella cheese. Forget the nuts and seeds.
These will get stuck in your brackets and drive you crazy until you finally brush and get them out. Ditto for the hulls of popcorn. Sticky foods will likely stick to your brackets and be hard to clean off. You also want to avoid biting into anything hard that may break or pop off a bracket. Bite with the side of your mouth. It may be virtually impossible to bite into anything with your front teeth for a while.
Get used to biting with your side teeth, instead. Besides, if you try to bite into a burrito with your front teeth, your front brackets will probably get plastered with tortilla. Speaking of burritos, beware of anything with large hidden chunks of meat or vegetables, like burritos or sandwich wraps.
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