Why Floss?

No, not the dance from Fortnite. You know, flossing your teeth with string. Getting into the cracks and crevices within your teeth to remove food particles that are too lodged in there for your to pick out with your fingernails.

There’s been some debate as to the “need” to floss over the years, and a lot of that stems from (or used to stem from) a lack of research on the topic. Or rather, there was a lack of conclusive evidence that flossing helps your overall dental health.

So let’s clear something up right here and now: Of course it helps your dental health. I mean, you’re literally removing particles of food from your teeth that your toothbrush can’t reach. And we all know that any little bits of food leftover in your mouth eventually are broken down into sugars that can begin to eat away at your enamel and develop into dental carries. Who wants that to happen?

So, despite there being “inconclusive evidence” on this research (which I’m not too sure I’ve even heard lately), it’s pretty straightforward that flossing helps to avoid cavities more than it is useless to do at all. I mean, think about all the dentists out there that recommend flossing daily? Do you think they’re telling you to do that for no reason at all? Of course not!

The soundest advice you’ll ever receive is that from your dentists right there: floss once a day, and you should be fine. Forget to do it one day? You’ll be alright. Do it the next morning and get back on your daily routine. That’s all there is to it.

So, anytime you hear someone going around spouting that flossing is useless, let them know it’s absolutely not useless. At the very least, it can help to avoid some cavities down the road. So, even if you don’t floss much and attempt to from time to time, it only helps to supplement your daily brushing routine. It certainly can’t harm you to floss, so getting a few flosses in during a weekly period? Yeah, it’s going to be better than if you hadn’t.

Just avoid hearsay and myths like this, if you can. Flossing isn’t bad for you, and if there is little difference in doing it or not, you’ll at least be on the “winning” end of things once definitive research has come out explaining the benefits of flossing.

Kombucha and Your Dental Health

Just earlier this morning I was texting my cousin about my morning drink of choice: kombucha. He responded to me with “Kombucha?”, which sort of surprised me that he had never heard of it. Considering he’s a health freak, I was a bit taken aback.

Kombucha, for all of you who aren’t aware, is basically fermented tea. A yeast culture is placed in black or green tea and aged, which ferments the tea and adds tons of beneficial bacteria to the drink. If you’ve never tried it, it tastes quite sour and can be a punch in the face because of its acidity (but like, a good punch in the face).

The main benefits that kombucha can offer you are healthy gut bacteria and detoxifying your body. I won’t say that the drink can overhaul your health in just one sitting, but drinking a little bit on a daily basis can be a great thing.

Oftentimes, people spread some misinformation about kombucha being “unhealthy” for you if you drink too much. The biggest reason it may be unhealthy stems from its sourcing. If you’re trying your own homebrew kombucha and you aren’t working in a sterile environment, then the bacteria present in the kombucha may actually become pathogens that are bad for you. This isn’t a matter of the drink being bad. Rather, it’s the brewer doing things wrong and not completely sterile. Just the same, it gets a bad reputation for having “a lot of sugar.” Well, if you’re worried about that, lowering your sugar intake from other things is advised.

As for how kombucha interacts with your dental health, it’s kind of like drinking fruit juice (especially that of citruses): the acidity and sugar levels aren’t good for your teeth if you don’t attempt to wash them with water after finished.

But if you clean your teeth properly and drink water after drinking the juice (and kombucha), you’re fine. The sugars won’t stick to your teeth, and the acid won’t have a chance to eat away at enamel. This is basic logic, honestly, so anytime I hear someone spread this sort of “warning” about kombucha, I like to say “Well no duh. It’s the same as orange juice!” Because, in all reality, it is. It’s a no brainer to wash your teeth off after drinking highly acidic things, isn’t it? All it takes is a few drinks of water to truly scrub the majority of the sugars and acid away.