{"id":937,"date":"2019-10-30T17:36:14","date_gmt":"2019-10-30T17:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/dental-care-blog\/sugar-its-many-aliases-and-your-teeth\/"},"modified":"2019-10-30T17:36:14","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T17:36:14","slug":"sugar-its-many-aliases-and-your-teeth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/dental-care-blog\/sugar-its-many-aliases-and-your-teeth\/","title":{"rendered":"Sugar, Its Many Aliases, and Your Teeth"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/\/template2\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2019\/01\/sugar_543.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"543\" height=\"543\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-824\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2019\/01\/sugar_543.jpg 543w, https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2019\/01\/sugar_543-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2019\/01\/sugar_543-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2019\/01\/sugar_543-200x200.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 543px) 100vw, 543px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><b>WHAT COMES TO MIND<\/b> when you hear the word \u201csugar\u201d? Probably your favorite type of candy or dessert, maybe your favorite soda. You probably didn\u2019t picture barbecue sauce, granola bars, flavored yogurt, or fruit juice, but all of these and plenty more foods you wouldn\u2019t suspect are loaded with sugar. That isn\u2019t great news for our oral health.<\/p>\n<h3>Sugar Versus Our Teeth<\/h3>\n<p>Why are dental health professionals like us wary of sugar? Simple. The harmful bacteria on our teeth and gums like to eat sugar as much as we do. When they\u2019ve enjoyed a tasty meal from the food fragments that remain in your mouth after a sweet treat, they excrete acid onto your teeth. This acid eats away at tooth enamel and irritates the gums, and <strong>if we aren\u2019t careful, it can lead to issues like tooth decay and gum disease.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3Bkb2I4dTH8?rel=0\" width=\"543\" height=\"305\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Learn to Recognize the Many Names of Sugar<\/h3>\n<p>If sugar is showing up in foods we don\u2019t think of as sweet, how are we supposed to know? One trick is to check the \u201cadded sugars\u201d line on food labels, but you can also identify it in the ingredients list, where it hides behind many different aliases.<\/p>\n<h4>The Obvious and the Sneaky<\/h4>\n<p>Anywhere the word \u201csugar\u201d appears, from brown sugar to coconut sugar, from coarse to powdered \u2014 it\u2019s all sugar. <strong>The word \u201csyrup\u201d is another giveaway.<\/strong> No matter what type of syrup it is, whether high fructose corn syrup or rice syrup, it\u2019s still sugar.<\/p>\n<h4>The Deceptive and the Scientific<\/h4>\n<p>Some of sugar\u2019s disguises are presented to you in a way to fool you into thinking they\u2019re healthy. These include agave nectar, honey, fruit juice concentrate, evaporated cane juice, and 100 percent fruit juice. Sugar will also hide behind intimidating, highly scientific-sounding labels, but <strong>a good way to identify them is by the suffix \u201c-ose.\u201d<\/strong> Fructose, sucrose, dextrose, lactose, maltose, and glucose are all scientific names for types of sugar molecules.<\/p>\n<h3>How Much Sugar Is Too Much?<\/h3>\n<p>With added sugars hiding in so many of the things we eat, cutting down on sugar can be a tricky business, but it\u2019s definitely worth it both for our oral health and our overall health. The recommendation from the American Heart Association is <strong>that women consume no more than 25 grams (6 teaspoons) per day, and men 36 grams (9 teaspoons).<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Healthy Sugar Alternatives<\/h3>\n<p>The way we eat our sugar is almost as important as how much we eat. Whole fruit is much better for us than fruit juice, and that\u2019s because the sugar in fruit is trapped with a lot of water and fiber, so our bodies have a harder time absorbing it. Whole fruit is also more filling, so it\u2019s harder to overdo it than it is drinking OJ with breakfast. <strong>This is the difference between natural sugars and processed sugar.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If fruit isn\u2019t enough to satisfy your sweet tooth, you can try sugar-free sweeteners like xylitol, Stevia, monk fruit sweetener, and erythritol come in handy. It gets trickier if you want to bake sugar-free, but you can reduce the sugar in your recipes by substituting some or all of the sugar for applesauce, mashed banana, dates, or figs. And <strong>a good way to avoid added sugars is by eating more whole foods.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>How Long Has It Been Since We Last Saw Your Teeth?<\/h3>\n<p>Cutting down on sugar is one way we can help out our teeth and gums, but it\u2019s not the only way! A great brushing and flossing regimen and regular dental cleanings are key to maintaining good oral health. If we haven\u2019t seen you in more than six months, today\u2019s a great day to schedule your next appointment!<\/p>\n<h4>Our patients are the sweetest!<\/h4>\n<h6>Top image used under <span style=\"color: #2a7abd;\"><a style=\"color: #2a7abd;\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/share-your-work\/public-domain\/cc0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CC0 Public Domain license<\/a><\/span>. Image cropped and modified from original.<\/h6>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #d9d9d9;\">The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.<\/span><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><b>WHAT COMES TO MIND<\/b> when you hear the word \u201csugar\u201d? Probably your favorite type of candy or dessert, maybe your favorite soda. You probably didn\u2019t picture&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[176,179,184,180,182,181],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-dental-posts","category-endo","category-general-dental","category-ortho","category-pediatric","category-176","category-179","category-184","category-180","category-182","category-181","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mydentalpracticeblog.com\/graystonedental\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}