The Dental Diet Book Review
June 19, 2021
In today’s show, we are going to do an old-fashioned book review on the information-packed book The Dental Diet, written by Dr. Steven Lin, a board-accredited dentist and an author who practices dentistry in Australia. We’ll cover information on Dr. Lin’s findings about our teeth, our gums, our jaw structure and how they are connected to what we eat – our nutrition! We’ll share what role food and nutrition play in tooth decay, crooked teeth, and what nutrients are needed for strong healthy gums and teeth.
Similar Podcast Episodes:
Transcript:
LEAH: Good morning and welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness. We are going to take a little different approach this morning to our delivery of today's topic to you. We're going to do an old fashioned book review on a book that is full of important information and actually on a topic that we've only really ever covered once ever on Dishing Up Nutrition. And this topic is about oral health. It's about our teeth, about our gums, our facial structure, our jaw structure, our airway formation, and how all of these things are connected to what we eat. It's connected to our nutrition. The information packed book that we're going to be talking about this morning is called The Dental Diet. It was written by Dr. Steven Lin, who is a board accredited dentist and an author who practices dentistry down in Australia. So before we introduce ourselves, I have a couple of questions for the listeners. Did you realize that 42% of kids develop holes in their baby teeth? So, yes, I said that that that 42% of kids develop cavities in their baby teeth. And did you know that 4 million kids in the U.S. wear braces because of crooked teeth? And did you know that the number of people who are wearing orthodontics doubled between 1982 and 2008? So those are really startling statistics. And Dr. Lin, who's the author of The Dental Diet, points out that the role, points out the role of food and nutrition plays in tooth decay and why so many people have crooked teeth. It's a book packed with so many little nuggets of information. And let me say this right now. His book goes way beyond just limiting our sugar intake and how sugar can be harmful for oral health. He goes way beyond that. And some of those things we're going to explore this morning. So to introduce ourselves, my name is Leah Kleinschrodt. I'm a Registered and Licensed Dietitian, and I really have a great interest in understanding the role of food and nutrition and how that plays out not only in our dental health, but in various other places in our body. And really, I'm hoping that like the information that's in Dr. Lin's book I can use and apply in my family's life so that my son doesn't have the same fate that I did with braces for a couple of years in those teenage years and getting my wisdom teeth out. And then joining me this morning, I have another mom with me, Teresa Wagner, who is a Registered and Licensed Dietitian as well. So Teresa, what was one of the most interesting or important pieces of information that you took from this book?
TERESA: Well, I find it really interesting that dental problems or dental disease only started after the industrial revolution. That was a time in our history when people started eating more processed foods, especially white flour and sugar. At that same time, people began eating less and less real food. So, you know, fossil records show us that ancient Egyptians, the Mesolithic hunter gatherers, indigenous people in tribes throughout the world have straight teeth and the absence of dental disease. But once the Western diet was introduced and processed food appeared, it took only one generation for dental deterioration to come into being.
LEAH: I think that's amazing. Like you said, it only takes, you know, somewhere 20, 30, maybe 40 years or so for some of these ramifications of changing our nutrition to start showing up in that next generation in our kids or in the grandkids and things like that. And I remember first learning about the impact of the Western diet and how, you know, what impact that had on dental health from, you know, I didn't know about this book before I started at Nutritional Weight and Wellness, but now I hear about it all the time. It's a book by Western A. Price that was written in 1939 and the book was called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
TERESA: Yes. I love that book too. And you know, that book was also Dr. Lin's inspiration.
LEAH: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so Dr. Price was a dentist back in the 1930s and he made all these wonderful observations and things that, you know, now we know about, but it was cutting edge back when he was practicing dentistry. And I was really surprised to learn how the Western diet or a, again, a more processed foods diet really affects the actual structure of the jaw. What they were finding is that as people ate more processed foods, that the jaw started to become smaller over the generations and became a lot more narrow. And then that has an impact on, you know, on our airways or how our teeth develop and things like that. So we all know food and nutrition affects heart health and our brain health, or at least I'd say most people, if you've been listening to Dishing Up Nutrition for any amount of time, kind of know, okay, if I eat this, then maybe that has an impact on my knee pain, or if I eat that it has an impact on my sleep. But most people just either don't make those connections, or it's just not something that, that is discussed a whole lot that nutrition actually affects dental health. And then it's helpful to have, to have teeth to chew your food. So, you know, we need to have a lot of these structures in place and working well and lined up well so that we can continue to have good oral health through throughout our lives. So from this great information in this book, we now know that food and nutrition even affects the structure of our jaws.
TERESA: Right. Well, now think about this for a moment: when we smile at each other, our bodies release endorphins that make us feel happy and warm. That small act is fundamental to how we communicate and live together. When a person has bad teeth and does not want to smile, it cuts them off; not just from the very chemicals in their own brain that, you know, they need in order to feel well; and those warm and fuzzies, but also from other people. And, you know, just thinking in current days, perhaps this could be a contributing reason to depression over this last year of mask wearing.
LEAH: Absolutely.
TERESA: People are wearing masks to protect themselves from the virus. So we went without seeing smiles. And as a result of not being able to see each other's smiles, we had fewer endorphins that were being released.
LEAH: Yeah; funny how some of that timeless information just keeps popping up throughout history. Right? So I thought Dr. Lin made a kind of a bold statement in his book that challenged the conventional mindset of the profession that he chose. And he says in his book that dental schools teach their students how to treat dental problems. But these future dentists are not taught how to prevent dental disease in the first place.
TERESA: Dr. Lin explained that typical dentist spends their first few years in clinical practice, mastering the skills of putting in crowns, bridges, veneers, dentures, doing restorations and root canals. But once they have learned how to do a procedure, then what they need to do is try to get fast at it so they can see more patients. At some point they'll hit their clinical peak, maxed out on efficiency and maxed out on the number of patients they can see. Then they just keep doing the same procedures over and over. Dr. Lin says, “Dental school teaches how to treat these problems, but not why they occur or how to prevent them.” In his book, The Dental Diet he shared the nutrients needed for strong, healthy teeth and the foods that actually break down our teeth. So Leah and I are going to talk about some of his findings and some of his recommendations throughout this show.
LEAH: Yeah. So let's start at the very beginning. Dr. Lin started with talking about breastfeeding actually. So he does recommend to breastfeed if at all possible and encouraged people to not just bottle feed breast milk; lots of different aspects to that. We know breastfeeding has some really unique and irreplaceable aspects to it. So it not only is it calories for a growing baby, but it is important for the development of baby's microbiome. So the good little gut bacteria, and also for the formation of baby's jaw and mouth and for straight teeth, once baby gets to that point and for well-formed airways.
TERESA: Right. And we're going to talk a little bit more about how that works coming up, but you are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition and it's brought to you by Nutritional Weight and Wellness. Today, Leah and I are reviewing an interesting book about dental health called The Dental Diet by Dr. Steven Lin. I also have a very special announcement this morning. Nutritional Weight and Wellness is now open in Woodbury, Minnesota. And we invite you to stop by. We are right off of Valley Creek and Queens Drive at 1625 Queens Drive. Our phone number is (651) 288-2700. This fall, we are looking forward to in house classes where you and other like-minded people can learn about the power of nutrition in our beautiful new classroom. We invite you to stop in and say hello.
BREAK
LEAH: Since we are looking at dental health today, I want to share some eye-opening information with you. Half of the U.S. population suffers from gum disease. Are you one of those 50%? Now, tooth decay is still the most chronic disease in children. And health researchers and educators understand the link between gum disease, heart disease and type two diabetes. But did you know from a nutrition standpoint, that collagen is one of the most critical building blocks of a lot of our soft tissues? So our skin, our joints and our gums. A good source of healing collagen is a great homemade bone broth. Now we have a recipe on our website and a step-by-step video. So if even the thought of bone broth or how, how am I going to do this is a little intimidating, there's even a nice little step-by-step video that takes you through the process. It's on our website, which is weightandwellness.com. And then we also have a blog article about Bone Broth Benefits and Recipes. That's the title of the article. So if you like to read and watch, you kind of get the full picture of information there. If you're not a huge bone broth fan, or if that still is like a little intimidating or still too big of a step right now, one easy way that you can just up your collagen game is to use a scoop of a powdered collagen. We have one at Nutritional Weight and Wellness called Key Collagen, and you can use that daily. I like to put mine in my coffee as a little bit of a protein boost in there and to get that extra collagen in, but you can also add it to smoothies or mix it into yogurts, or kind of mix it into a variety of dishes as well. And just that extra little protein support really can help not only keep the wrinkles away skin wise, but also can help bleeding gums or start to make those gums a bit stronger.
TERESA: I like to put collagen in my coffee too.
LEAH: Yay.
TERESA: So before we went to break, Leah was talking about the importance of breastfeeding for the formation of the jaw and the mouth and for straight teeth and for well-formed airways. So in addition to what Leah said, it's important for children to have a nutrient dense diet filled with animal foods that contain the activated forms of vitamin A and D. Eating liver, butter, animal meats, eggs, high-fat dairy products, and fatty fish are excellent sources of omega-3 fatty acids. If your children are not eating these types of foods, or even if they are maybe, we recommend taking the D3 K2 drops. And so for kids, how we recommend dosing that for them, it's one drop per 25 pounds of body weight. And then we also suggest one to two teaspoons of cod liver oil per day for the vitamin A and the omega threes. Now this is not the cod liver oil of the past. It has a nice lemony flavor, and it's very easy to take. So, I think that your kids would be okay with this one. You know, I'm a mother of three children, so I am very intentional about feeding my kids nutrient dense foods. For example, we eat lots of butter and we are very partial to the Kerrygold Irish butter that's, you know, from grass fed Irish cows.
LEAH: Yes.
TERESA: We regularly will have breakfast for dinner using pasture-raised eggs and bacon from pastured pigs. I make salmon every week and the kids will have, have veggies with that and rice. And on both of those, we'll put butter on that. And then I think you've heard me talk about this on radio shows in the past, but I also puree liver because we are not a family that likes to eat liver just in its full form. But I puree the liver and I will add it to ground meat dishes. So things like sloppy joes or tacos or chili and it, and if you don't use too much, it will cook in there seamlessly, and you don't even know that you're, you're getting very much. And it just is a little bit of a nutrient boost to those types of foods.
LEAH: Yeah, I think I remember you saying on one of the other shows a couple of weeks ago, Teresa, that, you know, with the liver, I think, I think you said you used a quarter cup of liver for like a pound of ground meat or something like, that's kind of the ratio that you use. And, and like you said, it doesn't maybe seem like a whole lot at that time, but if you're doing a ground meat dish, you know, even two or three times a week and you do that week after week, even that little amount can really add up over time just to get you some of those extra nutrients.
TERESA: Yep, absolutely. And you can handle actually, if you're patting your own burgers too, I've put it in hamburger patties as well.
LEAH: Yeah, yeah.
TERESA: Sausage patties, if you do it that way.
LEAH: Yeah, totally. Yep. I've done the same thing or meat balls as another big one.
TERESA: Meatloaf.
LEAH: Yep, absolutely. Yeah. And our, last year, one of our, for my family, one of our little pandemic projects was we got chickens and raised chickens, and so we have chickens in our backyard now and there's a nice big pen for them in the backyard. We actually have quite a bit of, of backyard area. And so we let them out. They run around. They eat the grass and stuff, and then they are really good egg layers. So we get several eggs every day. We're cooking that up with the Kerrygold butter. We're huge fans of that too. So we're always getting, again, those good eggs with the egg yolks in there. We do that pretty much every morning for breakfast. And even as I'm cooking, cooking our eggs in the morning if it's me and my son, when we're at home, I'm, I'm literally kind of getting pieces of butter off the stick and just giving it to him if he's really starting to chomp at the bit for breakfast. So like I'll just feed him straight butter off the stick and let them eat that as we're getting breakfast prepped.
TERESA: That's amazing. I love it.
LEAH: Yeah. And it's tasty. I love it.
TERESA: Yeah.
LEAH: All right. Yeah. So all of those really wonderful ideas. And again, I think if one of the things is, is if we can start kids a little on the earlier side with that stuff, you know, they, it's normal to them then and there, their pallets are a little more developed and more suited for those types of flavors. And so Dr. Lin: huge fan of all of that stuff. He suggests that every meal really should contain sources of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K2. And then we want some of those support elements to work alongside those major vitamins. And some of the major support elements include magnesium, zinc and have it make sure that we're getting some kind of dietary fat at every meal.
TERESA: The foods that have fat-soluble vitamins are whole full fat animal products, including the skin of beef, chicken, lamb, duck, turkey, organ meats, whole fish, shellfish, full fat milk, butter, full fat yogurt, and cheeses, pasture-raised eggs like at Leah's house, and fermented soybeans called natto, which has, is a great source of that vitamin K2. And then of course we want to have colorful vegetables in salads. And you know, maybe we can add some fat to those salads in order for those nutrients to absorb better, or we cook those colorful vegetables in a fat.
LEAH: Absolutely. And so there's, there's really so much information in The Dental Diet. Dr. Lin actually has a section in the book called “Give the mouth the nutrients it needs”. So going back to what we just mentioned a minute ago, he emphasizes the three main fat soluble vitamins, which is vitamin D, vitamin A, and vitamin K2. So before we get into our second break, let's just take a look at the first of those vitamins, the vitamin D. So Dr. Lin says, his quote is, “Vitamin D is absolutely fundamental to our health.” He points out that our digestive system needs vitamin D in order to absorb calcium from the foods that we eat, which is the very calcium our body needs to grow and strengthen our bones and our teeth. So our teeth need vitamin D in addition to all the other bones in our body.
TERESA: Right. And we get some vitamin D from our food, but not very much, right? And we also get vitamin D from the sun. And if you live in Minnesota, or actually, if you live north of Atlanta, this time of year we can actually get vitamin D from the sun. But we need to be careful that we're not burning ourselves and creating issues with our skin, with, with sunburn. But otherwise, really we do need to supplement with vitamin D for the vast majority of people in Minnesota. And, you know, like I said, anybody, really north of Atlanta with that vitamin D because it's so difficult to get from out diet.
LEAH: From just food alone.
TERESA: That's right. Well, you're listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. I want to share some information about beef and the vitamins and minerals that beef contains. As dietitians, we believe it's best to eat grass fed beef because the fat in grass fed beef contains carotenoids, which is a vitamin A precursor. The animal absorbs that, that carotenoid from eating the grass. The fat in the grass fed beef is higher in fat soluble vitamins, A and E as well. It also contains a variety of minerals such as zinc, iron and phosphorus. So think of a piece of grass fed steak as a high quality multivitamin.
LEAH: We'll be right back.
BREAK
LEAH: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. In Dr. Lin’s book, The Dental Diet, he has a few suggestions for those of us who might have a little trouble kicking some of those sugar cravings. He says to take one option is to take one tablespoon of either coconut oil or butter, and just kind of let it sit on your tongue and let it melt in your mouth and the cravings go away. Or another option that he puts out there is to take one tablespoon of sauerkraut and chew it slowly. So not only does the sauerkraut kind of have that tang or like a little bit of acidity to it, but it has those good bacteria in it as well, because it's a fermented food. So if you chew it slowly, kind of savor it, let it kind of let the, some of that melt into your mouth as well, that can help reverse or reduce some of those cravings for sugar as well. At Nutritional Weight and Wellness, another suggestion that we've recommended for our clients throughout the years is taking three capsules of Bifido Balance and three capsules of L-Glutamine before each meal. And do that for, you know, give it some time. Do that for at least three weeks or so. And really we've seen people turn their sugar cravings around, or those cravings become so much more manageable and that they're able to continue with their real food plan and able to kind of make progress and continue on the next step. So for the month of June, which we don't have too many more days left in June anymore, we are offering L-Glutamine at a 15% discount. So go to our website, which is weightandwellness.com. And you can find these products. And like I said, the L-Glutamine is on sale for the remainder of June.
TERESA: Well, okay. So before break, we were talking about a fat-soluble vitamin; vitamin D. And throughout the book, really Dr. Lin talks about, you know, many of the nutrients that we, that are important for bone and teeth health, but he really focuses on three of them: vitamin D, vitamin K2 and vitamin A. So now we are going to take a look at the role vitamin K2 plays in strong, healthy teeth. We need vitamin K2 to help deposit calcium into the teeth and bones and not into the arteries. There are actually two forms of vitamin K2. One form of K2 is MK4. And that comes from organ meat, from eggs from pasture raised chickens, from butter from grass fed cows, from shellfish and from emu oil. The MK7 form, which is from beneficial bacteria; this can be found in fermented vegetables, such as natto, sauerkraut, and kimchi. And it's also in certain cheeses like Gouda and Brie. Having adequate vitamin K2 is so important for our bone and jaw health.
LEAH: Yep, absolutely. And before I worked at Nutritional Weight and Wellness, I had no idea there was more than one form of K2. So that was just another little interesting tidbit that I kind of latched onto with Dr. Lin's book. And actually then you get two different forms through different types of foods. So, you know, if you're not a huge fan of liver or some of those other, you know, if it's not even more the animal based products, that you can still get some of this vitamin K2 through the fermented veggies or through some more plant oriented type of options. So I want to reiterate some of how this process works. So we mentioned with vitamin D so, and actually let's even back that up more for just a second. You eat foods that contain calcium, and we'll kind of touch on that in just a couple of minutes, but we eat foods that contain calcium. We need enough vitamin D in our system to be able to absorb most of that calcium from the foods that we eat. So that's great. We do need vitamin D and then K2 comes along and puts the calcium into the right places in the body. So we want that, all that calcium to be going into our bones and into our teeth. We do not want that calcium to be going into our arteries, our kidneys, our soft tissues and causing problems there. So that's how a lot of these nutrients start to work together and how, again, Dr. Price was starting to get queued into how these nutrients work together, but it really wasn't for many more decades that we did a lot more research into that. And that became apparent.
TERESA: Yeah, I believe he called it “Activator X”.
LEAH: Yeah, exactly.
TERESA: Because they didn't know what it was.
LEAH: Yep, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So they even had, you know, stranger names for them back then, and now they kind of more fall into the standard nomenclature. But, so K2, this is why we include K2 in our bone building supplement, or kind of like our bone building multivitamin, which is called Key Osteo Plus. We purposely made sure that there was vitamin K2 in that product because it does have a lot of calcium in it, so we got to make sure that that calcium goes to the right places in the body. So, and like I mentioned before, the addition of K2 also prevents calcium deposits, which can be responsible for kidney stones. And this part I didn't even know either that some studies show that vitamin K2 has a role in preventing the formation of gallstones. So I can't tell you Teresa, how many clients I see; maybe they've had their gallbladder out already, or they come in and they're like, hey, I got some gallbladder attacks and it's the gallstones and things like that. There's that is such a common problem; having just issues with your bladder.
TERESA: Absolutely. So where do we get this vitamin K2? When animals eat grass, their digestive system converts it into vitamin K2. So that's one important reason. I think I said this before as well. It's an important reason to eat meat from grass fed animals and not from grain fed animals.
LEAH: Yep, absolutely. Yeah. We want those animals to take the K1 from the grass and turn it into K2; kind of do the work for our bodies and turn it into K2 so we can use it a little bit more readily. So the last important fat-soluble vitamin is vitamin A, and I want to make that distinction right now that we're not talking about beta carotene. We're talking about actual activated vitamin A found in animal based foods. And so beta carotene is the plant form of vitamin A, which some people can use fairly well, but others of us have trouble making the conversion from beta carotene into a usable form in the body. So this is why we kind of want to sometimes just bypass that conversion process or having our bodies work hard to make that vitamin A and just eat the straight up activated vitamin A right off the bat.
TERESA: Right. And I think that that's not very well known that the beta carotene, it doesn't convert to vitamin A in everybody. And so how do you find out if it is for you? That would be, that would be testing that you'd have to, that you'd have to do. So it's really important to get that activated source that you get only through animals products.
LEAH: Right; absolutely. So da, da, da da! Liver is a good source of the activated form of vitamin A. Also cod liver oil is another good source. So I am the first to admit that liver is hard for me to get down. I'm going to have to ask my mother-in-law someday to show me how to make some liver and onions that to make it palatable. But in the meantime, I opt more for that cod liver oil. And that's what I give to my son. Also, I kind of use in our family. So just to repeat some of that, that biochemistry to keep it simple. So we need vitamin A and we need vitamin D to tell our cells to build and repair bones and teeth by taking up calcium from that digestive track. And then having vitamin K2 onboard in our bodies to kind of activate that calcium or to put it where it needs to go. Dr. Lin is a huge fan of cod liver oil. In addition to liver, he recommends taking the cod liver oil after the biggest meal of the day. Teresa, you mentioned the cod liver oil at Nutritional Weight and Wellness. It's not your typical like fermented, or the cod liver oil of, of your grandmother's age and things like that. That actually, the cod liver oil, and I've tasted it too, goes down really easily and very nicely lemon flavored. And like I said, even my son who's, he'll be three in August. Like, he'll take that down as well.
TERESA: Yeah, it is, it is pretty easy to take. You know, there are other important nutrients for your teeth too. And we talked about calcium and magnesium is important and zinc is important. So many things are important for our bone health. And I think sometimes we have this very myopic view of things where it's just this vitamin or just that vitamin or just this food or that food. But really what we need to do is take more of a 30,000 foot view of our foods and the overall quality of the diet, because those nutrients all work synergistically together in some ways that we understand and in some ways that we don't understand yet. And so it's very important to be getting your nutrients from food and then, you know, using some of these other things in addition to support us where maybe we're having shortfalls, if we're not eating liver and onions for dinner.
LEAH: Yep, absolutely. Well said. Exactly; it's yeah. You kind of start with that foundation of getting as much of your nutrition through food and then deciding from there; where do we need to plug in maybe a couple extra nutrients, you know, through a supplement or something just to, again, kind of continue to have good quality of life. So of course we would be remiss if we didn't talk about some of the harmful effects of excess sugar. So I mentioned Dr. Lin's book goes way beyond just talking about reducing sugar intake or the impact that sugar has on dental health. And so we've touched on some of those other highlights. So we do need to circle back to the sugar. We cannot emphasize the importance of following a low sugar diet. You know, that old adage that, you know, kids can eat anything. They're young. Their bodies can handle it. They can get away with it just because they're young. And maybe they're slim also, but that old adage just is not true. They are, these kids are in the process of building their adult bodies. And if they are lacking in some of the nutrients that we just discussed, or they're eating a sugar filled diet, which oftentimes the sugar is pushing out a lot of those extra nutrients, they will likely start seeing the results of that in their dental checkups. So, you know, you go every six months or so, and that's, you know, it can be a good benchmark for, you know, how are your teeth doing, or how are your minerals doing? How is your nutrition doing? So it's not just brushing or not just a lack of brushing or flossing. It is the foods, you know, nutritious or not that they are building that they are building their teeth, their gums and their facial bones from.
TERESA: Yeah. And I think that that's what we usually think about, you know, as far as if your teeth are doing well or not, it's are you brushing and flossing? That is typically what was, and then we assume if you're already having, getting cavities and things like that, that you're not brushing well enough or flossing well enough.
LEAH: Right.
TERESA: Or often enough. You know, and Dr. Lin says that most dentists will tell you that throughout their entire careers, that they have been trying to remove sugar from their patients' diets to little or no avail. And, you know, and, and even at my kids' dentists there, they have these displays on the walls of things that they, you know, “Don't, you know, don't be drinking soda and don't like sugar things”.
LEAH: Right.
TERESA: But I still feel like it's more of a topical, an idea of the sugar on top of the teeth versus that being the building blocks of their teeth.
LEAH: Absolutely.
TERESA: You know, so what are you building your teeth from? Are you building it from the vitamins and minerals we've been talking about, or are you building your teeth from sugar and processed foods? And what kind of nutrients do those foods have in them? Do they have vitamin A in them? Do they have calcium? Do they have magnesium? And the answer is no.
LEAH: Right.
TERESA: But I think like what he's saying here, I think it's, I think the thought, and I could be absolutely wrong, but I think that that really is more the topical, like the sticky foods, you know, stay away from gummies and those types of foods, which I agree with, you know, I'm not saying that that's wrong information. But I think that's more of the idea behind it is the topical idea, just like brushing and flossing. That's more of a topical thing.
LEAH: Yep. The layer that's on top and what we also want to consider, not that those things aren't important, but we also want to consider the things that we're building up those structures with, which you said are the nutrients, and a lot of the foods that we've talked about so far on the show.
TERESA: Well, you are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. If you have any type of autoimmune disease, you may want to join Cassie and Mel next week, as they discuss “The Gut Health Connection to Autoimmune Disease”. At Nutritional Weight and Wellness, we see clients with a variety of autoimmune diseases. Your diet, your food choices make a difference. Whether you have MS, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, vasculitis, Crohn's disease, lupus, or whatever autoimmune disease you may have. Call 651-699-3438 to set up an appointment so we can help ease some of your pain. For those of you who are interested in any of the supplements that we have mentioned throughout today's show, go to weightandwellness.com for more information.
BREAK
LEAH: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. As a nutrition company, we thought it was important to offer a gluten-free toothpaste with no added sugar or artificial flavoring that is fluoride free. So we've brought in a product called Dentalcidin, which is a broad spectrum toothpaste containing Biocidin. This toothpaste contains essential oils and fights plaque and tooth decay. It tastes great for both adults and children. So you can order it on our website at weightandwellness.com or stop by one of our six locations.
TERESA: Yeah. I've tried that toothpaste and it's good. It tastes a lot like the Biocidin; just not as strong.
LEAH: Yeah.
TERESA: It's got a really lovely, lovely flavor.
LEAH: Okay, awesome.
TERESA: Your teeth feel very clean.
LEAH: Okay, perfect. You heard it folks; the one and only, Teresa. So yeah. Well great. Because I had never tried it before, so I'm glad you had some experience with that. So, before we went to break, we were starting to dive into the sugar story and how Dr. Lin was saying, you know, dentists over the years, they know to talk to their patients about reducing sugar. But oftentimes, you know, it's hard, as we know, as dietitians, it's hard for people to practice that day in and day out. And many people who say they don't eat a lot of sugar actually consume far more than they really think. So Dr. Lin goes on to say the connection between tooth decay, sugar and bacteria has been established in the scientific literature for a long time. And yet the occurrence of tooth decay does little to dampen our sugar addiction.
TERESA: Nearly everyone knows that sugar is bad for them, but so many people cannot stay away from it. Sugar is one of the most consumed products on the planet. To address that point, Dr. Lin wrote, “170 million tons of sugar is produced each year. Sugar is cheap, tasty and addictive. Most people cannot get enough of it, which is why 74% of packaged foods contains added sugar.” He went on to say that, “It is also why one of our biggest health challenges is to loosen the vice-like grip that perhaps sugar has on our lives.” That is the reason why we talk about the harmful effects of sugar on nearly every Dishing Up Nutrition radio show and podcast.
LEAH: Yup. So we all have to be on the same page with this message, because like you just said, it's a, it is a vice-like grip that is so hard to break for so many people. And when Dr. Lin wrote about how and what to feed kids for good dental health, he says, and this is one of the most important points in his book is have kids eat food that requires chewing. So we'll explain that in just a second. He recommends to eat meat and veggies and also nuts. You know, if your, if your kid is age to have nuts, which is, I think it's after four, four years old, you can start giving kids like whole nuts and stuff. So kind of contrast that to the soft, easy to chew foods like Goldfish, mac and cheese, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And also we pay attention to what our kids are drinking. So kids should drink water and whole milk as their primary beverages and keep other drinks like juice, the sports drinks, sodas, just for very rare occasions, definitely not daily and maybe not even weekly.
TERESA: When we eat processed mushy or highly refined foods, we are denying our jaw exercise. So have you ever thought about eating as exercise?
LEAH: I never thought about that. The Dental Diet suggests including foods that require some chewing, such as whole raw vegetables, like carrots and celery sticks, whole nuts and seeds. And you know, one of my favorite recipes is the Crispy Nuts Recipe that's on our website. If you want to find it, it's, you click on recipes and then you go to the snacks tab. But I make that one all the time with pecan halves and is so good. And it's so simple. You just soak the nuts overnight and then drain them and stick them in your oven for about 12 hours. There's really no, there's lots of time involved, but there's no hand, there's really no hands on times.
LEAH: Right.
TERESA: Really, really good. Another thing that is also exercise for the jaw is eating meat that's on the bone. So chicken legs, chicken thighs. You can cook them on the crock-pot or on the grill. You can have ribs. These, these types of meats are good for bone, for bone building because of the chewing aspect; that activity for both kids and for adults; helps to exercise that jaw. And that continues to make your jaw grow correctly.
LEAH: Even through yeah, through adulthood and stuff. So we want kids to get started with that because most of our cranial facial growth is happening before age 12. So most of that jaw and facial development is happening before age 12, but it doesn't stop there. Like we actually have, our jaw continues to develop until the age of 18 and after 18, we might see little shifts here and there, but for the most part, most of, most of that development is done, you know, before you hit age 20. So the modern diet can lead to cracked teeth. It can cause problems with the jaw and facial muscles and it can lead to breathing problems even. So thinking about bone health and how we are told to do weight bearing exercises for the health of our bones. The jaw bone is no different. So Teresa started describing that, that actually when we chew foods and actually have to chew or kind of work our way through some of these tougher foods, it's like weight bearing exercise for our jaw. And the modern diet is filled with soft and easy to chew foods. So think the breads, the pastas, the crackers, you know, the foods that basically almost melt on your tongue and not things that you have to necessarily chew. And unfortunately, a lot of these foods are marketed to our children. So contrast that to the food that we recommend at Nutritional Weight and Wellness and that Dr. Lin recommends. He calls his, you know, the, those types of foods, ancestral foods. These foods require more chewing. So think of meat and veggies as exercise for the jaw so that it forms correctly. And then I just wanted to take us back to the breastfeeding part really quick, just from an exercise point of view. Just another reason that breastfeeding is so kind of unique and beneficial for babies is it's because it requires more effort on the part of the baby in developing their mouth. So when they have the nipple in their mouths, they're pressing it up against that, the pallet at the top of their mouths, then it flattens and broadens the roof of their mouth, which makes, it starts that process of making space for the upper teeth to grow in straight.
TERESA: Poorly formed jaw bones lead to sleep disorders in children because their airways become cramped and small. This can lead to poor results in school and behavior issues because they're overly tired. 55% of children with ADHD have sleep issues. And in adulthood, this malformation can lead to UARS, upper airway resistance syndrome, which is the little sister to sleep apnea. The airways collapse more easily due to a small mouth or jaw. And this can show up in unexpected ways like IBS, low blood pressure, dizziness, chronic runny and stuffy nose, sinus issues, stress, depression, and anxiety.
LEAH: Which is really interesting. You think about, oh, actually that improper development of the face, the jaw, the mouth, and things like that can then lead to an impact on all these other systems in the body, which is, I think really fascinating. So we've talked a lot about, you know, what can we do for our kids to help, to help them develop well? But guess what? The same types of principles are the same as we get older; low sugar, less processed food.
TERESA: Yes, that's correct. It's the same message. Our goal at Nutritional Weight and Wellness is to help each and every person experience better health through eating real food. It's a simple yet powerful message. Eating real food is life-changing. Thank you for joining us and make it a great day.
