Straight Teeth in Less Time

2 Types Of Food To Add To Your Child's Diet If They Get Frequent Cavities

20 October 2015

Lois Murray

If your child seems to leave every dental check-up with a cavity or two, then the most important steps to reducing their cavities are making sure they maintain good oral hygiene and limiting their consumption of sugary beverages and foods. However, two types of foods have been discovered to benefit your children's teeth, and adding them into your child's meals or snacks may help you further conquer their cavity problem. 

1. Probiotic Rich Foods

A recent study was performed on two groups of children that were each assigned to enjoy a probiotic beverage or probiotic ice cream for a week. Each child's saliva was analyzed before the study to determine how much cavity-causing bacteria, called streptococcus mutans, was present in each child's mouth before the study.

At the end of the study, both groups of children showed decreased numbers of cavity-causing bacteria in their mouth. However, after a week without eating or drinking either probiotic item, the saliva of the children who had eaten the ice cream maintained the lower bacteria count.

While the study conductors feel that more research needs to be performed before probiotic ice cream becomes a sure-fire food recommendation for children with frequent cavities, it can't hurt to work more probiotic foods into your child's diet to see if it helps improve their oral health.

Child-friendly foods rich in natural probiotics include yogurt and kefir. You should probably skip the probiotic supplements for now (unless your pediatrician advises), because no one is sure if the change in oral bacteria is due to the ice cream's action in the stomach or when it is passing through the mouth.

2. Real Cheese

While not quite as new of a discovery as the benefit of probiotic foods on oral health, cheese has been found to be a very beneficial food to eat for children who need an oral-health boost. Milk and dairy products in general are good for your child's teeth due to their high calcium levels that support tooth health just as they support bone health. However, cheese has been found to be especially beneficial, because eating just a bit of it helps to raise the pH of the mouth to a more basic level where cavity-causing bacteria cannot thrive.

Since the action of cheese may be due to the combination of chewing and the pH of it, stick to feeding your child small blocks or slices of real cheese and not cheese dips or soft, artificially made ones. It can be a great item to include in your child's lunch box if you know he or she does not have time to brush after eating lunch at school.

If your child develops cavities frequently, then make sure to take them to a dentist (such as Health Centered Dentistry) every six months and have them brush and floss properly every day. Once you have those tasks tackled, work on including more cheese and probiotic-rich foods in your child's diet for an extra oral-health boost. 

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