5 smile saboteurs

Sweets, soft drinks and even healthy foods can wreak havoc on your teeth.

Get the dish on five good-for-you foods that actually wreck your teeth, and learn how to enjoy them without sacrificing your smile.

Grapefruit
This citrus fruit is high in the antioxidant Vitamin C and filling fibre. But grapefruit is extremely acidic. If you eat it very often, it can cause erosion. 

Dried fruits
Although raisins, prunes and dried apricots are antioxidant-rich ways to curb your sweet tooth, they're not good for your oral health. They’re sticky and extremely concentrated in sugar. When dried fruits get stuck in the crevices between your teeth, the sugars keep acid production going, which erodes enamel and causes decay.

Wholegrain bread
Sugar is the worst offender when it comes to oral health, but people forget that carbohydrates break down into sugars too. This means that even healthy wholegrains feed bacteria in your mouth, which causes acid production and encourages the growth of cavity-causing plaque.

Popcorn
Those butter-drenched tubs at the movies aren't quite health food, but air-popped popcorn is a healthy snack. It's a wholegrain that provides cholesterol-lowering fibre; plus, it's a high-density food, which means it fills you up for few kilojoules. So, what's the problem? The husks of the kernels can easily get stuck between your teeth and cause infection, and uncooked kernels can crack your teeth.

Energy drinks 
When researchers from the University Of Iowa College Of Dentistry exposed healthy teeth to juice, soft drinks and sports drinks for 25 hours, the teeth had the greatest loss of enamel after being exposed to sports drinks.

Toothy tips 

• Time it right. The more often you eat and the longer foods are in your mouth, the more harm they cause. So limit between-meal snacking and drinking. This gives saliva time to do its job of neutralising acid.
• Think when you drink. Don't swish sports drinks around in your mouth, and use a straw so the liquid has less contact with your teeth.