Which has most sugar?

[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. (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.

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.

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 health too, because not everyone checks both sections - I don't usually.

[Kent]

It's difficult to say which has more sugar as all brands vary - some fizzy drinks have little or no sugar and others a fair amount - the same with squashes. it would be best to check on the ingredient declarations of the products you are buying - is sucre the top ingredient?

Also look at the nutritional info - sugars are quite often broken out so you can compare however in a fizzy drink if only carbohydrates are listed these are likely to be sugar.

Sugar is not the only problem with the drinks - I believe the fruit acids present can also cause tooth decay if left in contact with the teeth for prolonged periods

[Russethouse]

Ordinary Ribena was the bane of most Dentists lives, sirop can be a fairly similar consistency, it clings......

At 17 for a first filling I think your daughter has done very well.

[Dick Smith]

I'm pretty sure that the sirop I have got says it is 77% sugar by weight. That's a lot of sugar - probably equivalent to 5 or 6 sugar lumps per drink, working on the basis of about 1/6th of a glass (33cl) being sirop and the rest water.

[Richard-R]

A good sugar replacment is a herb called STEVIA. I grow it here in Aude and use it in tea/coffee and cooking. Very sweet and does not rot teeth.You can buy the seeds online from the U.S.A. It is a native plant of Soth America. Grows very well here.

[Iceni]

As someone of middle age with a filling in almost every tooth which happened before I was 20, I was worried about my childrens teeth and asked a very good dentist what I should do when they were small. His answer was, let them only drink milk or water.  Well I never had fizzy or straight sweet drinks in the house, they had to drink water after drinking fruit juice and my sons of 31 and 20 have one filling between them - and both have had serious orthodontic treatment which can cause problems as it is difficult to clean teeth with braces on. 

My elder son now drinks all sorts of things but his teeth seem to have hardened to such an extent that a good regular intake of beer or sugary things which he loves has no effect on them.

I would assume the Grenadine is the problem.  As an aside, I have managed to keep my teeth (with some help of crowns/lamnates) by following the dentists rule, never drink fizzy drinks and only drink syrop when it has quite a lot of alcohol mixed with it.  I also use an electric toothbrush and brush well only once a day - which was another strange bit of advice that seems to have worked - brush for 2 to 4 mins and floss - making sure the teeth are clean.

I envy my children their strong teeth but I am really pleased that they have them.