Halloween & Your Smile

Halloween is one of the scariest and sugar-laden times of the year, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a scary time for your teeth!

It’s no secret that Halloween candy and chocolate contain high levels of processed sugar – a nightmare for your smile. Here are a couple tricks and tips to keep your teeth beautiful and healthy this spooky season:

Eat Candy Shortly After a Meal

Every time you eat, the saliva production in your mouth increases and helps clean away sugar and food particles. Saliva is a very important factor in neutralizing harmful acids in your mouth that have the ability to cause cavities. Because of this, eating candy shortly after a meal can lower the possibility of the sugar sticking to your teeth and eroding your enamel. You should also try to limit frequent snacking, and drink lots of water after eating candy to help wash away the sugar particles as much as possible.

Set a Limit

After getting home from trick-or-treating, the first thing your child might do is excitedly dump all the candy on the floor and sort through it to find their favourites. However, if your child gets into a habit of eating these treats every day, the constant exposure to sugar can cause damage to their teeth. Setting a limit as to how much candy they can eat per day will go a long way towards preserving their smile.

Ranking Halloween Candy

Chocolate: It might be surprising to hear, but one of the least harmful sugary candies is chocolate! Chocolate doesn’t tend to stick to teeth like other candy does, and the cocoa in chocolate can actually provide some beneficial properties. Dark chocolate is actually considered an antioxidant and contains phytonutrients called flavonoids, which are plant chemicals that act as antioxidants. [1] The higher percentage of dark chocolate, the healthier!

Hard candy: There’s always a risk of breaking our teeth on hard candy if we chew it, and sucking on hard candy isn’t ideal either because we are holding the source of sugar in our mouths longer than we would with other candy.

Sour candy: Sour candies are a double whammy when it comes to maintaining good dental health during Halloween because not only are sour candies highly acidic, but they tend to contain an unhealthy amount of sugar that feeds bad bacteria in our oral microbiome.

Gummy or sticky candy: Candy that is especially sticky can stick to your teeth easily and remain stuck there, feeding bad bacteria for a longer amount of time and giving more of an opportunity to break down tooth enamel.

Being picky about what types of candy we consume during the Halloween season is a great way to reduce the risk of cavities and tooth decay, while still being able to enjoy trick-or-treating and get into the Halloween spirit! At our Simpli Dental Regina, Saskatoon and Calgary offices, we’d love to help maintain that beautiful smile year-round. Give us a call today!

Citations:

[1] Everyday Health – 8 Healthy Reasons to Eat Dark Chocolate.