Dental Hygiene

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

This week, my kids had their dental check and at nearly 17, my daughter was told she has holes developping in her teeth (following x-rays, I assume she will have fillings). She has never had to have anything done before, so compared to her friends, I suppose she has done quite well. The dentist asked if she had had a change in diet. In fact, she has, and we thought to a healthier one - she stopped having school dinners and therefore stopped buying desserts, she doesn't tend to bother with yoghurts or mousse for desserts at home, and she had taken to drinking GRENADINE but heavily diluted instead of fizzy drinks and not regularly. (We haven't tended to have diet drinks because they taste foul and aspartame isn't supposed to be very good for you, and also there is so much aspartame in other drinks that they taste foul and too sweet too). So she has been drinking Grenadine, heavily diluted. Over the last year or so, she has also lost weight.

Anyway, I wondered what the general opinion was of SIROP in France. We thought that surely well diluted in water it was a healthier option than other soft drinks.

We are in England, by the way, and the dentist has never heard of the Sirop found in France.

True she does also have Super Poulain or Banania for breakfast with bread and Poulin or Jam. However, she cleans her teeth regularly so we didn't feel this was a worry. She has healthy, home-made food with no added sugar at all other meals.

The dentist told us something totally contrary to what we had been taught. i.e. DON'T bother to clean your teeth after a meal, but clean them BEFORE a meal, as it is the plaque on them that the bacteria clings to. If you clean them before a meal there is nothing for the bacteria to cling to.

I find this very weird, and also a very odd idea to clean teeth before a meal, because you can't taste anything properly for at least an hour after cleaning teeth, and I do like to taste my food.

Have you heard it this way round before?

I'm posting this in Food and Drink too, because not everyone checks both sections - I don't usually.