Good Soup Heals Your Teeth
Good Soup Heals Your Teeth
There’s nothing like delicious soup that warms your insides. Homemade broths are one of the most potent medicines for tooth decay. In the diet of the people in the Swiss Alps who were largely immune to cavities, soups were served throughout the week.9a Broth from nourishing soup is made by boiling cartilage-rich bones of chicken, beef, fish, and so on. Good broth is rich in gelatin, and when refrigerated it will gel. Excellent gravy can be made with beef or lamb broth.
Gelatin can help heal and rebuild your digestive tract. It enhances nutrient absorption. Aloe vera and slippery elm gruel can also aid in soothing the intestines. Part of Dr. Price’s successful tooth decay controlling protocol was the almost daily use of beef or fish stews. The beef stew was prepared with plenty of bone marrow. The best bone broth for tooth decay reversal is broth made from the carcasses of wild fish. The carcass ideally should have the head, and if it has the organs – even better. This broth is especially potent and rich in minerals. Instructions for broth are found in the recipe section later in the book. Healthy cultures around the world know the value of soup made with fish heads. The meat, eyes and brain from the fish are all eaten as they are rich in minerals and fat-soluble vitamins.
Suggested Broth Consumption
1-2 cups of broth per day. Consume it as a tea, in soups, in stews or as gravy.
Blood Sugar
An important insight from dentist Melvin Page explains how blood sugar fluctuations can influence tooth decay. In blood chemistry tests, Dr. Page determined that different types of sugar consumption cause different fluctuations in blood sugar levels. When blood sugar fluctuates, the calcium and phosphorus ratios in the blood fluctuate along with it. White sugar produces the most significant blood sugar fluctuations, which last five hours. Fruit sugar produces fewer fluctuations but the blood sugar still remains out of balance for five hours. Honey causes even fewer fluctuations and blood sugar stabilizes after three hours.10a Blood sugar fluctuations can increase blood calcium. This is because calcium is being pulled from your teeth or your bones depending upon which glands are strong and which glands are weak in your body. The calcium and phosphorous ratios in your blood are negatively affected over time by blood sugar fluctuations. Dr. Page found that the combination of stable blood sugar levels with the correct ratio of calcium and phosphorous in the blood results in immunity to tooth decay.11a
The longer your blood sugar is out of control, the longer and more significantly the calcium and phosphorus ratios are altered, the higher the likelihood of tooth decay. Regardless of whether the sugar is white sugar or sugar from fruit consumption, it still affects your blood sugar level. If sweet foods, natural or processed, are consumed several times per day, then the alteration in blood sugar will be prolonged and consistent. Over time, this will lead to a consistent alteration of blood calcium and phosphorous levels and likely cause cavities. All sweet foods, no matter how natural, cause blood sugar fluctuations. How much blood sugar fluctuates is related to the intensity of the sweetness. Therefore dates, or dried fruit, may cause significantly more blood sugar fluctuations than a fresh green apple. If sugar is a part of your regular diet, particularly in large amounts, then your blood sugar level never has much time to recover to normal.
While conventional dentistry believes that it is the carbohydrate factor of the food sticking to teeth that causes cavities, in reality it is the changes of the blood chemistry that cause tooth decay from sugar. Conventional dentistry advises patients against frequent snacking. Here the ADA writes, "Frequent snacking on carbohydrate-containing foods can be an invitation to tooth decay."12a Frequent snacking typically is an invitation for tooth decay, not because snacking itself is bad or wrong, but because of the types of foods most people choose for snacks. Typical snacks could be: fast foods, potato chips, candy bars, "health food" bars, breakfast cereals and flour products of every type. Thus conventional dentistry is partially correct: frequent snacking from sugar-laden convenience foods of commerce produces tooth decay. Dr. Page found that frequent meals containing vegetables, protein and fat are beneficial in controlling blood sugar fluctuations. Conventional dentistry is also incorrect about snacking, because frequent snacking of balancing foods like vegetables, proteins and fats will not cause tooth decay. Tooth decay has more of a connection to the type of food eaten than to the frequency of snacking. Wise food choices containing some protein allow you to snack all day long while inhibiting tooth decay.
Fruit
Fruit, particularly berries, can add to your health. But too much fruit means too much sugar and that can cause tooth cavities by causing blood sugar fluctuations. Most of the fruit on the store shelves today is hybridized. For example, an ancient apple was a small sour fruit, which probably needed to be cooked to be edible. But hundreds and even thousands of years of cultivation, selection, and hybridization have created apples with high sugar content. While fruit is natural, the high sugar content of most fruits means that many people cannot eat as much fruit as they want and remain healthy. Fruit is not a bad food choice, but many people eat too much. Many people have mistakenly made fruit a staple item of their diets, rather than seeing it as a snack, side dish, or occasional treat.
Fruit is best eaten with fat. Fruit and cream go well together, such as peaches or strawberries and cream. Some fruit goes well with cheese, such as apples or pears. Some people consume excess amounts of very sweet fruits. The sugar in these fruits helps calm hunger by providing rapid energy. But fruit does not give the body sufficient nutrient building blocks like protein. Sweet fruits include oranges, peaches, grapes and bananas. I highly recommend limiting these very sweet fruits when you are trying to keep tooth decay at a minimum. Having cavities is a sign that your blood sugar mechanism is not working optimally, and eating excessive natural sweets will not allow your system to correct itself. Once your cavities are a distant memory, you could safely eat more sweet fruits. For some people, cooking all of their fruit before eating is helpful as it transforms the sugars and can increase digestibility.
Basic fruit recommendations: Avoid or greatly limit highly sweet fruits like dates, peaches, pineapples, dried fruit, blueberries and bananas until you do not have tooth decay anymore.
Intermediate fruit recommendations: Only have fruit once around the middle of the day such as after lunch. The fruit you do eat should not be too sweet. Examples of less sweet fruits are: sour berries such as raspberries, as well as kiwi, and green apples.
Advanced fruit recommendations: If you have bad cavities or want to immediately stop the rapid process of tooth decay, avoid all sweets and fruits completely.
Sweeteners
The work of dentist Melvin Page and the telling photographs of Weston Price show us the disastrous effects of too much sugar in our diet. The more refined the sugar is, the more it is going to cause your blood sugar to fluctuate. The more extreme the fluctuation, the more disturbed your calcium and phosphorous metabolism will be. Fructose-containing sweeteners or sweeteners labeled as low glycemic may not raise your blood glucose level, but they do raise your blood fructose levels. The end result is an even deeper disturbance in your calcium and phosphorous balance than that caused by white sugar. We already have the challenge of obtaining enough minerals in our diet. The more sweet foods that you eat the less room you will have for mineral- dense foods like vegetables and nuts.
Safe Sweeteners in Moderation
You can use these sweeteners in moderation when you do not have active tooth decay. If you have active tooth decay, and painful or sensitive teeth, then make every effort to temporarily avoid all added sweets. Our current policy at home is to only have sugar from fruit. Once or twice per month for a sweet dish we use unheated honey, grade B organic maple syrup, and pure cane sugar from Heavenly Organics™.
Unheated honey – Choose honey that states it is unheated, or never heated, on the label. Bees work very hard to keep their hive at around 93 degrees Fahrenheit. If the hive gets too hot, the bees abandon the hive. I highly recommend only consuming honey that is harvested at or below 93 degrees. Honey that is labeled as “raw” but does not state unheated or never heated may have been heated to much higher temperatures than 93 degrees, and many of the benefits of the honey may be lost. For this reason, honey is not good for cooking. Despite the claims of some manufacturers of honey, honey does not prevent tooth decay. It is however an excellent sweetener.
Maple Syrup – Grade B organic maple syrup will have your body saying “yes.” Many maple syrups may contain formaldehyde residue even though the practice of using formaldehyde pellets to keep tap holes in trees open is currently forbidden. I have felt sick from a generic brand of organic maple syrup, so choose smaller independent brands that are more likely to be using the best practices.
Real Cane Sugar – In ancient Ayurvedic medicine, real sugar such as jaggery is considered a medicine. But most of the sugar available in the store today is far from medicinal. Most varieties are excessively processed. Safe forms of sugar are pure cane juice, extracted yourself from the sugar cane, Heavenly Organics ™ Sugar, or Rapunzel’s Rapadura sugar. As far as I know, other sugars labeled raw, organic or anything else are likely to be significantly processed, with the minerals removed. Both cane sugar and maple syrup can be safely used in cooking.
Stevia (Use extreme caution) – Stevia is a very sweet herb. You must be extremely careful with its use because it may have other medicinal properties besides its use as a sweetener. The only stevia that is safe to use is the minimally processed fresh herb. The fresh stevia is simply dried and powdered. A stevia concentrate which is a brownish color that simply contains the entire stevia herb in a more potent form should also be safe. There are many sweeteners made from extracting components of the stevia leaf and they are dangerous. Be very careful that you do not mistakenly buy a stevia extract or overly processed product. These extracts of stevia will likely cause significant imbalances to your glandular system. Likewise do not use stevia that is stored in glycerin.
Refined Sweeteners Can Damage Your Teeth
The simple rule I follow for sweeteners is that if the sweetener you are using is not on the above approved list, and not a sweet whole food like dried fruit, then avoid it. It is important that you understand that many sweeteners that have been recently introduced into the market, particularly to the health food market, are highly processed and deceptively labeled. I have had many people plead with me, “but the label says it is raw, vegan, all natural, and healthy.” When large sums of money are potentially to be made, marketers blur the line of reality to in order to sell more products. Just because the label presents a convincing marketing pitch does not mean you should be the next human guinea pig. Healthy sweeteners affect your blood sugar level. That is what sweet foods do. There is nothing healthier about an exotic sounding, imported sweetener than correctly processed cane sugar.
Evaporated Cane Juice and White Sugar – The empty calories from sugar provide energy but do not provide nutrients to the body. White sugar will cause blood sugar fluctuations which over time will result in mineral losses from your teeth and bones. Queen Elizabeth the 1 st is remembered for her black teeth from excessive sugar consumption. They turned black, but did not have huge painful cavities probably because of her otherwise protective diet rich in fat-soluble nutrients. Processed sugar consumption depletes chromium, zinc, magnesium and manganese.13a Health food product labels often list organic evaporated cane juice. Do not be fooled by this natural-sounding interpretation; this is simply sugar. Sugar is recognized by the body so it is far better than any of the sugar replacements. If you are going to choose to buy a packaged food that is sweet, you want it to contain either sugar or fruit as a sweetener. That being said, consuming sugar gives us calories that are not nutrient dense. The replacement of nutrient-dense foods with nutrient-poor sugar in our modern diet is in part what has contributed to tooth decay with the rise of modern civilization.
Xylitol – A research report in the Journal of the American Dental Association suggested that claims that xylitol stops cavities need further studies.14a Xylitol is a sugar alcohol, and not simply a sugar. Pets can overdose on xylitol, with side effects ranging from seizures to liver damage, and even death. Xylitol does not have what is known as "GRAS" status, or Generally Recognized As Safe for consumption status by the federal government. It is approved as a food additive instead.15a That is why it is chiefly found in products that are “cosmetic” by legal definition, such as toothpaste or chewing gum.16a Xylitol is metabolized primarily in the liver.17a Xylitol’s anti-cavity properties are purported to depend on the fact that bacteria cannot digest sugar alcohols and convert them into acids. Yet in chapter one I clearly demonstrated that bacteria and acids are not the primary culprits in tooth decay. Also avoid the other unnatural sounding sugar alcohol sweeteners such as sorbitol, mannitol, maltitol, and erythritol.
High Fructose Corn Syrup (Corn Sugar) – This is by far the worst sweetener for our teeth and overall health. What is confusing to people about fructose, is that fructose in manmade products is not the same as fructose in fruit. A synthetic sugar and a natural sugar have been given the same name. Because high fructose corn syrup contains the synthetic form of fructose, it is toxic to the body. This explains why in study after study high fructose corn syrup is linked to serious diseases like pancreatic cancer, diabetes, and obesity.18a My experience is that consuming foods containing fructose is a recipe for glandular imbalances that lead to severe tooth decay. Avoid high fructose corn syrup like the plague. Manmade fructose is hiding in processed foods under different aliases including: the highly processed fructooligosaccharides (FOS) or inulin as well as fructose, or corn syrup. Sweetened drinks, soft drinks and food bars are just a few of the foods commonly sweetened by fructose. The prevalence of the dangerous high fructose corn syrup in our foods is due to government subsidies to the corn industry which make fructose cheaper than natural sugar. This policy is not a good use of our tax dollars.
The Double Danger of Soft Drinks
Soft drinks contain tons of sugar and are highly acidic. They rob your body of calcium and magnesium once because of the sugar, and twice because of the acidity.
Agave Nectar – Agave nectar is a high-fructose-containing food masquerading as a health food. It contains as much or more fructose as high fructose corn syrup. Extensive research has shown that is not a raw or unrefined product despite marketing claims to the contrary. Watch out because agave nectar is hiding in many “health food” products such as “health food” bars. There appears to be a disconnection between products marketed as health foods, and what is really healthy to eat.
Glycerin – This sweet byproduct was originally from animal fat used in candle making. Now it can come from a variety of sources including biodiesel manufacturing. Although glycerin has many uses, it seems toxic to the body to take internally.
Malted Grain Sweeteners – Watch out for malted grains like barley and corn. Either the type of the sugars in the grain, or the plant toxins from the grains, can cause severe tooth decay.
Brown Rice Syrup – The sugar in brown rice syrup is recognized by the human body. However, I am very concerned about the presence of grain anti-nutrients, and the enzyme methodology of processing and creating the syrup. The similarity of brown rice syrup to malted barley syrup (which I know promotes cavities significantly) is a cause for serious concern.
Molasses – This is a byproduct of beet or cane sugar production. It probably has a similar level of safety to cane sugar in relation to tooth decay, but I am not sure.
Sugar Isolates – Maltodextrin, sucrose, dextrose and so forth are isolates of naturally occurring sugars. Avoid these.
Fake Sweeteners – These are sucralose, aspartame, and saccharine. A wide body of evidence and concern exists regarding the hazards of artificial sweeteners.
If you want further information about toxic sugars, visit www.sugarshockblog.com
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