Sugar-free sweetness

Why is sugar so bad for teeth?

A teeth healing diet is full of delicious food options, but sweetness is not its main flavour.

Everyone knows that sugar is bad for your teeth, though its a well-kept secret that the reason sugar causes cavities is not what most people think.

Rather than the sugar in your mouth causing plaque to create cavities its the sugar in your blood stream upsetting the natural processes of remineralisatoin.

When our blood sugar levels are elevated the body isn’t able to manufacture the hormones and proteins that naturally and continuously remineralise teeth.

Sugar is everywhere.

It hides discreetly in almost every single packaged and processed food.

But of course it’s out flaunting itself as well, in bakery cabinets, birthday parties, convenience store refrigerators and almost everywhere else you look.

And because sugar is addictive, the flaunted sugar is often hard to resist, even when you are being vigilant about avoiding the hidden sugars in mayonnaise, pasta sauce or bread.

Teeth healing diet

One of my principles of holistic teeth healing is that you can start to heal your teeth by adding helpful foods before you start removing the unhelpful foods, so I don’t advocate that sugar addicts have to give up all sugar in order to heal your teeth.

But cutting back on refined sugar is definitely a good idea, and if you have already embraced a sugar-free life, your teeth are thanking you for it.

Sometimes when you need a sweet treat to share with children or to feed the child within, its good to have an option with no fructose, minimal glucose and as much tooth healing goodness as you can squeeze in. And that’s where the magic of gelatin (or gelatine) comes into its own.

Gelatin- an anti-cavity secret!

Gelatin is a concentrated teeth healing food, equivalent to bone broth in its delivery of protein and minerals.  I’m not talking about jello, which is mostly sugar, but the plain unsweetened gelatin powder, ideally sourced from grass-fed, organically cattle.  This good quality gelatin is more difficult to find- I have to order mine online- and much more expensive than the regular plain gelatin sold in my supermarket. But oh, the things that it will do for your teeth.

My favourite way to consume gelatin is as teeth healing gummies.   There are infinite variations to satisfy every kind of sweet craving. For this demonstration I used  some of the glut of homegrown plums and whole, heavy, summer-grass-fed cream for a double whammy of teeth healing goodness.  You can use whatever you have available.

Anti-Cavity Candy Formula

Rather than giving a recipe, I’m sharing the formula so you can change it up to suit your taste and what’s available.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of fruit and liquid in any proportion and combination

• Suggestions for fruit: plums, peaches, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries, apples, pears, mango, etc. Kiwi, pineapple and most citrus are too acidic to set well (and are hard on the teeth).
• Suggestions for liquid: cream, milk, coconut milk, kombucha, kefir, yogurt, herbal tea, green tea, water, left over smoothie, fresh vegetable or fruit juice etc

3 1/2 tablespoons of high quality gelatin dissolved in 1/2 cup fluoride-free cold water

1/2-2 tsp of optional sweetener

• Suggestions for optional sweeteners: raw honey, organic maple syrup, stevia

Method

Heat fruit and liquid slowly until hot but not boiling, then cool slightly and blend, mash or mouli til smooth.

Dissolve gelatin into cold water and let it sit 5 minutes then stir to break up the gel into small lumps.

Add the gelatin into the warm fruit mixture and stir until smooth.

Pour into molds or a shallow container and leave to set in the refrigerator for 2 hours. Keeps in the refrigerator for up to a week.