3. White Bread You might not have known this but white bread is loaded with sugar. If your doctor ever nagged you about eating brown and not white, well we’re sorry to say it but – they’re very right. Not only is white bread full of tooth-battering sugars, it is also an extremely starchy foodstuff which is prone to sticking between your teeth, essentially cementing those harmful sugars in place until your next thorough brush. It isn’t just your teeth, which will suffer, your gums are also likely to pay the price – expect gingivitis and gum disease!
4. Sweets This really goes without saying but, just like soft drinks, sweets and candies are a recipe for disaster. If you’ve got a constant sweet tooth, you should be prepared to have sweet dentures instead in a very short space of time. Milk chocolate, for instance, is obviously full of sugar but also comes with a generous side-serving of fat which helps the sugars to stick to the teeth for much longer.
5. Beer & Wine We don’t want to be killjoys but beer and wine are very acidic. The pH of beer is around 3.7-4.1 whilst wine tends to be worse, around the 3.5pH mark. With sugar in both, this acid has a very detrimental effect indeed. It isn’t really acceptable to drink alcohol through a straw so the best way to counteract the damaging effects of booze on your teeth is to brush regularly. If you are planning a night out of drinking spirits, brush your teeth beforehand to create a barrier between the wine and your pearly whites.