Keep Your Smile Healthy

Don’t take for granted that just because your smile looks healthy that it is healthy. It takes practicing great habits every day to keep your smile in tip-top-shape and great oral habits on a regular basis can ensure your smile lasts a lifetime. Follow these 7 steps to ensure your smile is beautiful every day. 

1.     Brush and floss regularly. No need to skip this valuable step in the morning or at night. It takes less than 5 minutes to keep your smile healthy. 

2.     Eat healthy fruits and vegetables.  The extra water in fruits and vegetables can rinse sticky foods from your teeth to decrease the plaque that sticks on the surface of your teeth when you consume food high in carbohydrates and sugar. 

3.     Don’t skip your dental visits. We know how busy you are. Keeping your routine dental visits can save you time later on. Problems that result in not brushing and flossing can lead to periodontal problems, expensive crowns, root canals or other major dental procedures to get your smile back in line. 

4.     Drink water. This is so important for your smile and your body. By consuming water, you keep your mouth from drying out. Dry mouth increases the number of bacteria that is already in your mouth, giving them opportunities to attack your enamel. 

For more information on how to improve and keep your smile healthy, contact Dr. Lee & her team.

Don’t Reach For A Bad Snack

While you are sitting around the house looking for food to consume, think and apply these few simple rules in order to help protect your teeth from decay. Dr. Anna Lee recommends limiting the number of snacks you are consuming throughout your day.

Bad Snacks with high sugar content that cause tooth decay:

·      Cakes, sweet biscuits

·      Chewy & hard candies

·      Soda, sports drinks

·      Fruit juices

·      Peanut butter

·      Potato chips

·      Crackers

·      Popcorn

·      Fruit snack bars, muesli bars

·      Some breakfast cereal

·      Dried fruit

For more information Contact Dr. Lee & her team today.

Healthy Eating for Adults

The foods you eat can help increase the health of your smile. While we all consume sugar or sweets sometimes, these few tips from Dr.Anna Lee can help improve your overall health and help you to keep all of your teeth.  

·      Avoid frequent snacking on sweets and sweet beverages between meals.

·      Sugar Substitutes and Sugar-Free products taste like sugar, but they don’t promote decay-causing acids that can cause tooth decay.

·      Chew sugarless gum- it stimulates the production of saliva and it prevents tooth decay.

·      Cheese stimulates the production of saliva.

”Sugar-Free products means that no sugar was added to the foods during processing,” says Dr. Lee, “but the foods may contain other natural sweeteners, such as honey, molasses, evaporated cane sugar, fructose, barley malt or rice syrup.”  These natural sweeteners contain the same number of calories as sugar and can be harmful to the teeth.

For more information on healthy eating contact Dr. Lee & her team today.

Healthy Eating for Older Children

The food that an older child consumes is critical, not only in developing life long habits, but also for the overall health of their teeth. Providing healthy snacks for your child can ensure they get the nutrients they need without the junk they don’t. Here are five tips from Dr. Anna Lee on how you can help.

·      Recent research shows that cheese is one of the healthiest snacks for children’s teeth.  Cheddar, Swiss and mozzarella cheeses stimulate the salivary gland to produce saliva and lessens the effects of acids attacking the teeth and causing tooth decay.

·      Avoid frequent snacking on sweets and sweet beverages between meals.

·      Serve snacks and meals that satisfy a child’s need for different types of foods-crunchy, soft, chewy, smooth, sweet, sour, bland and others

·      Offer snacks at regular times, such as mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Don’t let children snack throughout the day.

·      When shopping, allow the children help pick out fruits, vegetables and cheeses.  They will be more interested in eating them.

For more information on which foods are great for your child’s teeth contact Dr. Lee and her team today.