I read 80-10-10 a while back. I'm now reading Raw Food Controversies by Frederic Patenaude, who I believe now follows the 80-10-10 way of eating. Frederick writes about getting a lot of cavities when he went raw vegan. I have a mouthful of capped teeth and if I get even one cavity, it can cost me over $1,500.00 to fill the cavity and replace the tooth, so I'm really fanatical about eating any way that could cause cavities. I did have a cavity recently and the dentist said no more sugar. I have cut sugar totally out of my diet and haven't had more cavities. Fruit has a lot of sugar, although it is natural sugar. I know that we need to also consume greens.

Can someone comment on the subject of teeth heath and how to precent cavities on this 80-10-10 diet. Also, many other natural doctors (Dr. McDougall for example) say not to eat fruit. The Hallelujah Diet says 15% fruit and there is a lot of controversy in the raw food movement about whether to eat fruit, etc. (that's why I am reading Raw Food Controversies) trying to follow the right plan.

Thanks for any help

Kathy

Dr. Graham has commented specifically on this topic in his book, 'The 80/10/10 Diet'. To complement what he says there, but not to take away from it, you may want to put even more attention on consuming ripe fruit. Acid fruits and dried fruits can be abrasive upon your teeth if you eat too much of them, and if you do not practice good oral and dental hygiene.
Brushing and flossing regularly are important when you are on any diet, no less when you are on 811.

So if I primarily eat bananas, apples, pears, melons, blueberries, grapes, figs, papaya, mangoes, cucumbers, red, orange and yellow bellpeppers and only very ripe oranges, grapefuit, tomatoes, tangerines, lemon in water, then I can be assured these fruits will not damage my teeth, as long as I floss and brush after eating?

It is of upmost impotance to me as it will cost me over $2,000.00 if I have to have a filling and have one of my crowns taken off and replaced.

Thank you for answering this.

Kathy

Where are your greens, Kathy?

Oh, I was just listing the fruits.

I like to have greens in smoothies because I can't chew salad very well--no back teeth due to cavities through the years.

I like to have several kale leaves and maybe 1/2 head of Romaine lettuce with either 2 bananas or an apple - I add reverse osmosis water and put this in the Vitamix.

Or maybe a big bunch of parsley, a head of Romaine lettuce and a pear.

Or a lot of spinach and a couple of bananas.

I also can juice all those greens and also juice carrots.

I thought that bananas made me feel acidic until I had them first thing in the morning and they didn't have any negative effect. I really enjoyed the bananas in the morning.

I can see you have to eat quite a bit of fruit to get calories because all those greens don't have many calories.

Also, after I lose all my fat, I want to add some avocado and young coconut meat and water, a few soaked nuts. I have about 55 pounds more to lose.

I would like your input on the above.

Kathy

The diet sounds fine. I wouldn't go crazy with juicing my greens. The fiber is a nutrient essential to optimal digestion.
I cannot guarantee anything about what you experience with regard to your teeth. Healthful eating and living would certainly help you, but I simply cannot say that you will experience "this specific result in your teeth". It would be irresponsible of me to do so as I know so little about you. All I have to go off of is the info you have provided in your above posts. A consultation with Dr. Graham may give you more reassurance and information to support you. He would obtain a thorough health history of you and thus be able to give you more specific guidance, tailored to your situation.
There is no reason not to live and eat healthfully, as far as your teeth are concerned. But I can't guarantee anything about them, sorry.

Thank you for all your help.

I will follow up on your suggestion.

Kathy

Kathy,

I would love to know how you resolved this. I am also interested in the tooth decay issue. It is my 2nd day eating 811rv, and I had black grapes today and noticed that my teeth felt really weird while eating them (and after). I wondered if they were being damaged by the grapes. So... curious to hear more.

_________________
Best Regards,
Brian

Fruits that are especially tart, such as those grapes may have been, contain acids that can be abrasive to the teeth. If it were me, I would limit my consumption of such foods and rely more on non-acidic fruits like bananas. Or, I would blend the grapes and then "drink" them, if they were so abrasive upon my teeth.

Thanks for the tip Luke.

You wouldn't happen to know of a list anywhere that shows the acidity of various fruits, would you?

_________________
Best Regards,
Brian

The acidity of a fruit is simply sensed on your tongue. The categorizing of a fruit as "acid" or "sub-acid" ignores the fact that the fruit's level of acidity is somewhere along a continuum. There are areas of grey, and categorizing fruit according to acidity is not black-and-white. This is a paragraph from rawfoodexplained.com:
"There is no sharp line of division between the acid and subacid fruits. Neither is there a sharp line of demarkation between sub-acid fruits and sweet fruits. The gradations between these classes of foods are almost imperceptible. The acid fruits are those with the most tart flavors—lemons, grapefruit, oranges, pineapple, sour apples, tomatoes, and similar fruits rich in acid. The sub-acid fruits are those that possess less acid flavors-pears, sweet apples, apricots, fresh figs, some grapes, sweet peaches, cherries and nectarines. The sweet fruits are those that are rich in sugar (sweet in taste)—persimmons, bananas, figs, dates, raisins, sweet grapes, mangoes and papayas."
What is called "sweet fruit" is really "no- or low-acid fruit".
The acidity level will change in many fruits as they ripen fully. Perhaps those same grapes would be less tart if you wait several days longer before consuming them.
You may be able to find other grapes that are just as sweet, but not so tart.

I have noticed that my teeth seem to be more sensitive when I brush them than before. However, I have also noticed that I can now brush my tongue and back of the tongue without gagging as I used to always have doing that.

I also had some sort of weird sore on one of my teeth at the gumline. It would come and go, but I don't seem to have it any more.

I think my family went to the first dentist to appear in our tiny rural town and he was an active alcoholic. He also needed money I guess and he filled every tooth of every member of the family! So I have a bunch of teeth with mercury fillings in them! Alas, I don't have the money to get those fillings removed. I really had no problems all my adult life until one day in one of my early raw food attempts, I was cracking sunflower seeds with my teeth and suddenly realized I had a cracked tooth. The next tooth got infected and, before long, with tooth replacements and another tooth nearing death and a root canal, I was around $4,000 poorer! I certainly can understand the fear of more expense!

I am convinced that the high mineral/vitamin content of the fruit-based/green vegie diet will help to strengthen teeth and offset the subacid or acid fruit, especially if one drinks water afterwards or, more carefully, brushes afterwards.

Flossing is no less important than brushing the teeth to take care of them properly. Flossing once or twice each day, and brushing about that many times (if not more, depending upon the frequency of your meals), are good practices for dental hygiene.
Due to the abrasive acids in highly acidic fruits, waiting approximately thirty minutes after eating a meal of such fruits may be of value. The following quote by Dr. Alan Carr provides more information about this:
“One caveat to brushing after you eat is if you've eaten an acidic food or drink — for example, orange juice. Avoid brushing your teeth for at least 30 minutes after acidic foods and beverages. These acids weaken tooth enamel, and brushing too soon can cause damage to the enamel. If you know you're going to eat or drink something very acidic ahead of time, you may want to brush your teeth first.” - from Alan Carr, D.M.D.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/brushi ... th/AN02098

Rinsing the mouth with water after eating acidic fruits won't offset the effect of eating acidic fruits. The acids are still weakening the tooth enamel. Rinsing the mouth with water removes (alkaline) saliva from the mouth. This saliva contains minerals and antibacterial substances essential to healthy teeth. If the amount of saliva in our mouth is reduced, this enables more unwanted bacteria to flourish in the mouth, and it also reduces the body's effectiveness at remineralizing the teeth following a meal of acid fruits.
I wait about 1/2hr after I finish eating acid fruits before I brush my teeth. I may floss in the meantime, and do other things (like empty the compost, clean up, etc.) before I brush.

Hope this helps, and a merry Xmas to you all.

Luke

Hi, I have one tip that my dentist told me. She told me to brush my teeth 15 minutes before eating anything. Having a clean mouth apparently reduce the amount of bacteria. Bacteria in your mouth uses sugars in the food for energy and leaves waste in your mouth that is very acidic.

The acid in food you eat can also according to my dentist cause damage to teeth but it is not as bad as the damage you'll get from sugar. Her recommendation is to eat all the acidic food at the same time and not spread it out over the day.
recommendation Hope this helps.

Ever since making fruit a massive part of my diet, which has been since about 3 months ago, I've started to have problems with my teeth.

No prizes for guessing why that is.

Anyone have any suggestions for dealing with it? Short of bushing my teeth while I'm at work... I don't know if that's common-place in the US but over here in England that's not really the done thing (not that that's every stopped me before )...

But any other ideas? I drink loads of water, so already over that one.

Also I've thought about chewing gum, but I'm not keen on that "solution."

Well my teeth got better, actually the feel of them and the lack of tartar made it difficult for me to remember to brush my teeth for quite some time 'cause I was so used to being reminded to brush my teeth by how they used to feel "fuzzy" before 811. They had erosion and I had lots of gum pockets and my gums had problems and various other things before that went away after doing 80/10/10 lifestyle for a while. I did still need to keep brushing, and had some issues after several years of inconsistent brushing (where I'd skipped a few days at times without realizing it until I thought about it) with the hard to reach spots due to my new lack of brushing at first, but I've got that handled now.

Now I've put it into my waking and bedtime routines (and have created routines, hehe), so I remember better. I brush my teeth and tongue and oral irrigate in the morning, then floss, brush and oral irrigate my teeth at night. I have a hand-held battery operated oral irrigator that is much easier to use for me than the counter units. It's made for travel, so you could take it to work with you if you were so inclined. I have a tongue scraper, but have found it pretty useless as I don't ever get anything with that other than clear saliva, so I figure I don't need it. I do like to brush my tongue in the morning, possibly more for the sort of massage it gets than anything I think.

How many times a day do you eat? How many times a day do you brush? Do you floss, oral irrigate or do any other oral hygienic methods? If so, how many times a day is that?

Do you eat greens and/or celery daily?

That reminds me of an idea for you. I often like to have a stick of celery as dessert after fruit meals. I think it helps clean the teeth and it's tasty too. Perhaps that can help you as well. Sometimes I sort of brush with the stick of celery absent-mindedly like when people use toothpicks and chew on them while doing other stuff. Perhaps using both (celery and toothpicks) could help. Actually, there's a reusable thing my step mom uses instead of a toothpick that's pretty cool and seems better to me. It's a little rubber cone mounted on a metal handle that she uses to massage her gums or something, but it lets you get stuff out from in-between your teeth if needed too.

Also, what sort of problems are you having? Did you not have these problems before?

_________________
Aloha!

-Janie

I think there can be these reasons of teeth decay:
1. the acid food dissolves the enamel
2. when germs are fed by sugar they produce acid
3. scratches caused by abrasive stuff
4. your saliva has low ph
5. your saliva can not remineralise your enamel

Here are solution
ad 1,2 eat only very ripe fruit. After eating acid food rinse your mounth with weak solution of water and baking soda. Pls do not use too much baking soda. Very alkaline stuff also dissolve enamel. Finish your meal with vegitable
ad 3. do not use too abrasive toothpastas, do not brush your teeth with baking soda (you can rinse but not brush because baking soda is abrasive)
ad 4 it can be caused by poor nutrition or it is genetical
ad 5 prefer tooth soap before common tooth pasta

Been 811lfrv for about 1 month now and teeth started being very sensitive 2 wks into it. Started adding more dark green leafy to the diet every day AND stopped using toothpaste and started brushing with an herbal oil blend I found online- has gotten rid of pain!

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions and I will work on implementing them.

I just had to have another root canal and there is an infection at the base of the tooth in the jaw. I am not taking antibiotics in the hopes that my body can handle it. I continue on 811 for the most part with occasional lapses. I am looking very good due to my weight loss and everyone says that I look very healthy with sparkling eyes and very healthy looking. My body seems to be stuck at the upper 130s and I need to be 131 to be classified as normal weight instead of overweight! I have been working very hard and much longer than I was previously able to do, all of it physical work, but I looked at my body yesterday and saw too much sagging muscle (underneath the abdominal flap that I am still struggling with).

Oops I have been brushing with baking soda and I will stop that and look into the brushing aids you'll have recommended. I need to find a solution for the teeth problems I have because it is killing me financially! I was told by the dentist doing the first root canal that I had lots of cracks. I was constantly grinding my teeth over the years, apparently due to the discomfort of not getting frequent cleaning from the dentist and gum irritations as well as lots of life stresses.

Hi all,

Eating fruits as ripe as possible maybe does not work because biased sense of acidity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripening
"Even though the acidity of fruit increases as it ripens, the higher acidity level does not make the fruit seem tarter, which can lead to the misunderstanding that the riper the fruit the sweeter. This is attributed to the Brix-Acid Ratio."

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... x/abstract
"sucrose clearly suppressed the perceived intensity of citric acid"

Could you someone confirm the ripe fruit is less or more acid as unripe one?
Does sugar in ripe fruit confuse our taste-buds and we mistakenly consider ripe fruit as less acid?
Does sugar mask acid?

Hi again

I knew that ripening increases content of sugar in fruit. But I was not sure if it can lead to less acidity because our perception of acidity is biased with amount of sugar in fruit.
I can confirm myself and you , that ripe fruits are less acid than unripe one.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802811/
for blackberry extract for the article
"We measured the sugar content of fruits at the three color stages. The green fruits contained 7.5%, the red 9% and the black 20% sugars. In parallel, the acidity decreased from pH 2.6–2.9 in green and red unripe fruit to pH 3.6 in black ripe fruits."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC91938/
for avocado extract for the article
"pH of unripe pericarp of freshly harvested avocado (Persea americana cv. Fuerte) fruits, resistant to C. gloeosporioides attack, was 5.2, whereas in ripe fruits, when decay symptoms were expressed, the pericarp pH had increased to 6.3"

Hi

Although 811 for just a week, my teeth and mouth are now in the best condition ever. Two or three times a day I will give teeth/tongue a light scrub with a toothbrush dunked in warm water to soften it. Flossing once a day too though it hardly seems necessary any more.

Rich