A snow-white smile looks great and natural. This is the first sign of good oral health and excellent hygiene. However, our eating habits affect what our smile will look like in 10 or 20 years. This applies not only to the health of your teeth and gums but also to the shade of your tooth enamel.
Tooth enamel is indeed the hardest mineralized surface layer of the teeth. It protects the internal structures of the teeth from external factors (food, bacteria). However, despite its strong structure, enamel can change its color under the influence of food and beverages, acquiring dull and unnatural colors. We’ll tell you what these foods and drinks are and how best to consume them to keep your smile white.
List of Foods and Drinks That Can Stain Teeth
Before we move on to the list of foods, drinks, and products that stain teeth, let’s note a simple fact. Abuse of any food or drink can cause some harm to the health of teeth and gums. However, the following foods and beverages from this list, due to certain properties, leave a noticeable mark after consumption and stain tooth enamel.
Tea and Coffee
The drinks that most people love are not the best friends for a snow-white smile. It is black, green tea and coffee that can cause considerable damage to tooth enamel. Especially if you abuse these drinks every day. The fact is that the pigments contained in coffee or tea penetrate the surface layers of the enamel and give it a dull gray color. As a result, it significantly worsens the beauty of the smile.
Grapes, Wine, and Grape Vinegar
Grapes, as well as drinks and dishes based on them, have two similar properties – color pigments and acid in their composition. Thus, the acid destroys the surface layers of the teeth, which clears the way for color pigments to penetrate the tooth enamel. That is why after consuming grape-based foods and drinks, and even fresh fruit, teeth noticeably change color for a while, acquiring a blue, red, or yellow hue.
Artificial Colors in Sweets
Lollipops, chewing gum, and even cakes with colored fillings can also stain tooth enamel. Their effect on the enamel is not as noticeable as, say, on the surface of the tongue (we think this has happened to you when after eating candy or cake, the surface of your tongue acquired a bright unnatural color – blue, red, or even green).
However, if such dyes stain the mucous membrane, they also have a significant effect on tooth enamel, which means that they change its shade from snow-white to yellowish or gray.
Tomatoes and Tomato Dishes
Red like a tomato. Everyone knows this expression. But the red color of tomatoes, as well as the acid in their composition, have a special reputation because of their color for a reason. They can cause a lot of problems for your teeth if you overindulge in such foods.
Tomatoes change the color of the enamel with constant consumption and abuse of these vegetables in any form. Even if we are talking about tomato soup or bolognese sauce with tomatoes in it. So the main rule regarding tomatoes in the diet is to eat and not to abuse them.
Red and Blue Berries
Cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and other berries have a bright taste and no less bright color. This means that they are not the best friends with a snow-white smile, although they are quite tasty.
Juices and Concentrates
Juices and their concentrates also double blow to the surface of tooth enamel and its color. After all, fruit acids destroy the surface layers of enamel, and natural dyes in juices and concentrates, thanks to this, color the enamel, giving it, for example, a familiar orange color.
The Way to a Beautiful Snow-White Smile
This is a short list of foods and drinks that stain enamel and make your smile look dull. So is it better to give up these drinks and foods to protect your tooth enamel? Not at all. The way to a beautiful snow-white smile, first of all, lies through careful care and the use of a few life hacks. And this is what we are talking about:
- Daily oral hygiene at home helps to take care not only of the health of your teeth, but also of the whiteness of your smile.
- Drinking drinks through a straw significantly reduces the effect of colored drinks on the color of tooth enamel.
- A few sips of water after eating sweets, fruits, juices, or coffee will help remove food and drink residues from the enamel surface and reduce the effects of dyes and acids on the surface layer.
- Professional teeth cleaning helps to remove colored pigments from the enamel surface and lighten the enamel by a couple of shades. That is why many dentists advise undergoing this procedure at least once every six months. For example, in the VIP Dental Care Queens clinic, professional dentists of the clinic will be happy to provide you with such a service.
Conclusion
We hope that familiarizing yourself with the list of foods, drinks, and products that stain tooth enamel will be useful to you. And a few useful life hacks will help protect the health and aesthetics of your smile and preserve the natural whiteness of your teeth for as long as possible.
