Patient Education

 

 

Dried Fruits can be hazardous to your teeth!!

Although dried fruits are claimed to be nutritious, it can cause severe damage to our teeth. Here are some reasons why dried fruit can bring risk on your oral health:

Sugary

There are 2 ways of preparing dried fruits: sun-drying and controlled drying for 5 days, or industrially drying which is a fast process as it only last for 24 hours. The purpose of both preparation is to drain the water and concentrating the sugar in fruits.

In this process, the dried fruit has 7 times more sugar than fresh fruit. In addition, most dried fruits from the market/ shops do not contain vitamin C, and sometimes lemon juice is added to increase the percentage of the vitamin. However, this also lowers the pH of the fruit, making it more acidic.

The 4 main problems that may arise due to excessive eating of dried fruits are as follows:

1. Broken teeth– chewing dried fruits can lead to removal of fillings and carelessness chewing may also lead to teeth breaking/cracking. Dried fruits such as pineapple, nuts, almonds, and peanuts can cause fractures in your teeth or crowns.
2. Teeth discolouration– dried fruits lose their natural colour from the drying process thus, artificial colours are added. Food colourings in fruits (papaya, plums, mango, etc) can darken your teeth.
3. Caries– dried fruits has sugar levels 7 times more than its fresh counterpart and most of them are also sticky/chewy; residues can get stuck between the teeth. This can then lead to the formation of cavities.
4. Salivary secretion injury– the chemicals in non-organic dried fruits decrease the secretion of saliva. Saliva is a very important factor against bacteria. Reduced saliva flow increases the bacterial activity.