Whether your favorite is popcorn or chocolate, kicking back with a tasty treat and some TV is a great way to decompress – until something gets stuck in your teeth. We like our snacks, but we don’t want them lingering around like a sad ex-lover! These three munchies just can’t take a hint, but don’t worry. We have some tips that’ll send them packing.
When Meat Has Beef with Your Teeth
You don’t see many people sneaking beef jerky strips into a movie theater, but meat-based snacks will keep you going throughout the day. It’s much easier to feel full with sausage bites and chicken nuggets than candy. Unfortunately, many meats are either dense or stringy. If they’re not building up on your back molars, they’re getting shredded and wedged between your canines.
Trying to Floss Out These Snacks Will Drive You Nuts
Nuts will also build up into clingy mounds, especially if you’re chewing on a whole handful. The hardshell variety have a “nice” added feature where they’re flakey like biscuits and tough like toffy. Shell skin is tricky to remove because it’s so dang thin, while floss tends to fray and break on the more solid part.
Change My Mind: Bread is Harder to Brush than Carmel
Dense, sticky breads like white bread are annoying enough with teeth that are “free-range”. If you have braces, though? Good luck. This doughy substance latches onto brackets and wires and becomes more and more like cement the longer it stays in your mouth. Plenty of foods are tricky to clean out of braces, but bread has to be public enemy number one in that regard.
How to Give Food Particles the Boot
You can always see your dentist if a stubborn piece of food refuses to take a hike. Stuck food particles and debris are considered a dental emergency, so if it’s particularly offensive you could receive prompt relief. But it’s always good to have some home-grown solutions in your back pocket. Here are some tricks you can try:
- Pull your floss back and forth or wiggle it around the food debris
- Use a floss pick for more precise control
- Invest in a water flosser
- Brush your teeth to loosen debris
- Rinse your mouth with warm water or mouthwash
One way you can help prevent food from getting stuck for an eternity is to floss every day. When you skip a day or two of flossing, a surprising amount of food particles and plaque can build up in the thin spaces between your teeth.
Flossing it out naturally makes more room in the space, creating a wider gap. Even if the difference is slight, it’s harder for food to cling to air than additional debris, and it’s easier to work food out when there isn’t additional build up. Basically, consistently ejecting obnoxious visitors keeps unwanted guests at bay. So don’t forget to floss!
About the Author
As someone who’s often on the go, Dr. Laura Gramse knows all about the importance of a mid-day snack. Of course, she’s also an experienced dentist, and knows that food should be removed from your teeth as soon as possible. If a date with your favorite treat has gone wrong, give her office a call at 413-783-6907. She and the Dr. Laura Gramse Family Dental Care team will promptly evict the stubborn debris!
