Your teeth are designed to chew foods without sustaining damage. A durable outer shell called enamel protects your teeth and ensures they remain strong as you use them. But despite their stability, abnormally high pressures could cause a tooth to crack, chip, or fracture.
This type of dental emergency could be repaired with restorative treatment. But you should preserve your oral health by avoiding hard-textured food items that could generate pressure when you bite them and harm your smile. Read on to discover four foods that pose a risk to the structure of your teeth if you are not careful.
4 Food Items That Can Crack Your Teeth
Popcorn
Many people love salty and fluffy-textured popcorn as a snack. But the puffy appearance of this food can hide hard unpopped kernels within your bowl. Biting down on these kernels could create abnormally high pressure on your teeth, leading them to break.
Though you may not feel pain from a dental injury like this, you should still contact your dentist as soon as you can if you suffer tooth breakage. The chip or crack will worsen, leaving your smile vulnerable to many dental dangers like infections or decay.
Bagels
You may not realize that bagels and other hard bread have a dense texture. This means your teeth endure greater pressure when you bite into a bagel than you might imagine. Though they make an amazing sandwich, bagels could put the structure of your teeth at risk.
A crack, chip, or fracture in your tooth could put you in pain. Even if you do not notice any discomfort from this breakage, you should still let your dentist know. They can repair this dental damage promptly to prevent further harm to your smile.
Hard Candy
Portable and long-lasting hard candy make for an easy and delicious treat. It consists of melted sugar or syrup that solidifies into the hardened candy you know and love. You should suck on these treats, though many feel tempted to bite into them before they dissolve in your mouth.
Biting into hard candy could severely hurt your teeth. If you cannot resist biting these sweets, you should limit or avoid them to protect your smile. Pressure from these candies could harm not only your teeth but prior dental work like crowns and fillings too. Spend less time undergoing emergency dental work at your dentist’s office by staying careful of the risky foods you consume.
Corn on the Cob
Corn on the cob can be fun to eat. But your teeth are not made to withstand the pressure of biting into a cob and grating against it to remove and eat the corn. The combination of the angle and pressure of this type of biting risks major tooth breakage.
Your dentist can use a dental crown or other restorative dental tools to repair this type of dental damage. But you should protect the natural structure of your smile whenever possible. Try to consume corn in other ways than on a cob to maintain good oral health.