Sugary foods sure do taste good, but the only good they are doing is electrifying your taste buds. The ugly truth about sugar is it causes weight gain, high cholesterol levels, cardiovascular disease and even affects your mental awareness. Even worse, sugar is a big factor when it comes to tooth decay and periodontal disease. We’re marking up sugar to be the bad guy, because it is!
Of course, you cannot cut sugar completely out of your life. It exists in plenty of processed foods, not just in candy and sodas. You’d have to go cold-turkey on a lot of your favorites, including cereals, saucy foods, potato chips and especially ice cream. Even healthier options like apples and citrus fruits have a high sugar concentration. Sugar is bountiful in our diets, but if you cut down the sugar intake, your oral and overall health will both see a huge difference!
How to Cut Back on Sugar
Cutting down on sugar is pretty easy if you think about it. You control what type of foods and drinks go into your mouth after all. So, let’s take a look at some of the most common sugar fiends that exist.
Let’s start with sodas! Sodas make the most sense. Let’s look at their sugar concentration. In a regular 12oz. can, most sodas have anywhere between 30-50g of sugar. That’s a lot! Cutting out sodas completely may cause you to go through withdrawal symptoms including anxiety, so medical experts believe a greater alternative is to start cutting your soda intake by half in moderation until soda is no longer something you’re drinking on a needless basis.
What’s wrong with sport drinks? Unless you’re an active athlete, you don’t need to be drinking sport drinks day in and day out. While they may have a high number of electrolytes, it also has plenty of sugar. Sport drinks are meant to get athletes through their sport, and you’ll often see them drink plenty of water too. If you have a sport drink regularly without combining it with physical activity, it could lead to weight gain and sensitive teeth.
Say goodbye to processed foods! Amongst the many things in your diet, cookies, cakes, pastries and breakfast cereals are notorious for their high sugar concentration. For better or worse, the only benefits these foods provide is a sugar rush that’ll have you craving sugar throughout the rest of the day. There’s plenty of other options you can try instead that’re just as fulfilling, including oat foods, unsalted raw nuts and fruit-based snacks.
Throw away the candies and sweets! One thing that we’ve grown accustomed to is a limitless supply of candy. Candy tastes good, and we keep plenty of it near us for satisfying our taste buds. That’s terrible! If you’re a candy lover, not only are you exposing your teeth to dangerous sugar amounts, but you’re ruining your sense of taste! Start cutting back on the amount of candies you eat and focus more on fresh fruits, sugar-free gum and even dark chocolate.
Ways Your Teeth Benefit from Less Sugar Consumption
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