TAKING CARE OF TEETH
These pages often repeat an important message: eat good food and clean your teeth. It is repeated because this is the most important thing you can learn.
Other pages discuss what to do when problems occur, but if you follow these two suggestions, you will almost never have problems with your teeth and gums. This is true because good food keeps your whole body healthy, including your teeth. Also, with no 'colonies' of germs or harmful factory sugar on your teeth, your mouth cannot make the acids that cause both tooth and gum problems. So, remember:
Eat Good Food
An easy-to-remember rule is the same foods that are good for the body
are good for the teeth. A healthy body is the best protection against infection.
Good nutrition (eating well) means two things:
One, eat a mixture of different kinds of foods every time you eat. There are several groups of foods. Every time you eat, try to eat one or two foods from each of the groups.
This way, you will get three important kinds of food:
- GROW FOOD (body-building food) to give you the protein you need;
- GLOW FOOD (protective food) to give you vitamins and minerals; and
- GO FOOD (concentrated energy food) to give you calories to be active all day.
The MAIN FOOD is at the center of every meal.
Two, be sure you eat enough food to give your body the energy it needs.
This is even more important than the first suggestion. We get half or more of our energy from our MAIN FOOD.
In most parts of the world, people eat one low-cost energy food with almost every meal. Depending on the area, this MAIN FOOD may be rice, maize, millet, wheat, cassava, potato, breadfruit, or banana.
The MAIN FOOD is the central or 'super' food in the local diet.
A spoonful of cooking oil added to a child's food means he only has to eat
about 3/4 as much of the local main food in order to meet his energy needs. The
added oil helps make sure he gets enough calories by the time his belly is
full. 
Be sure always to eat GROW FOODS and GLOW FOODS to get the vitamins and protein you need.
Your energy foods give you the most important part of your diet—calories. Half or more of our calories come from the MAIN FOOD, and most of the other calories come from GO FOODS.
WARNING ABOUT 'GO FOODS':
Although GO FOOD gives us the energy we need, some GO FOODS are worse than others. Honey, molasses and especially white sugar can be very bad for the teeth, even though they have the calories we need. Fruits, nuts, and oils all give us energy (calories) without attacking the teeth.
Cleaning Your Teeth
Cleaning teeth requires time and care. If you hurry, you will leave food and germs behind, and they continue to make cavities and sore gums.
You may find that different dental workers recommend different ways of brushing teeth. Some ways are definitely better, but often they are harder to learn.
Teach a method of cleaning that a person can learn and will do at home. Let him start by scrubbing his teeth (and his children's teeth) back and forth, or round and round. Encourage him to improve his method only when you think he is ready.
Toothpaste is not necessary. Some people use charcoal or salt instead. But it is the brush hairs that do the cleaning, so water on the brush is enough.
Scrub the outside, inside, and top of each tooth carefully.
When you finish, feel the tooth with your tongue to make sure it is smooth and clean.
Finally, push the hairs of the brush between the teeth and sweep away any bits of food caught there. Do this for both upper and lower teeth.
Sweep away in the direction the tooth grows: sweep upper teeth down and lower teeth up.
Explain how important it is to use a brush with soft hairs. A brush that is stiff and hard will hurt the gums, not help them.
You can make a hard brush softer by putting the hairs into hot water for a few minutes.
Do not put the plastic handle into the hot water, or it will melt.
If your store has only hard brushes, tell the storekeeper that hard toothbrushes do not help the people in the community. Ask him to order and sell only soft toothbrushes.
Note:
Another important way to reduce cavities is by adding fluoride to teeth. Fluoride is a substance which, like calcium, makes teeth harder and stronger.
Fluoride in drinking water, toothpaste, vitamins, and mouth rinses, helps to prevent cavities. These methods are sometimes expensive.
Fluoride can also be found naturally in food and water. For example, tea leaves and most foods from the sea contain a large amount of fluoride.
So, your source of fluoride can be either:
CLEANING BETWEEN THE TEETH IS VERY IMPORTANT
Here are three ways to clean between the teeth:
1. Push the hairs of a toothbrush between the teeth, and sweep the bits of food away.
2. Remove the stem from a palm leaf. Use the thinner end and move it gently in and out between the teeth.
3. Use some thin but strong thread or string. String can be the best method of ail-but you must be careful with it.
Get some thin cotton rope used for fishing nets. Unwind and use one strand of it.
OR
Buy and use Dental Floss. This is a special kind of string for cleaning between the teeth.
Be carefull The string can hurt your gums if you do not use it correctly. The next page shows how to use the string, but the best way to learn how to 'floss' your teeth is to have someone show you. Ask a dental worker who has experience.
Wrap the ends of the string around the middle finger of each hand.
Use the thumb and finger to guide the string. Go back and forth to slide the string between two teeth. Be careful not to let it snap down and hurt the gums.
Upper teeth
With your fingers pull the string against the side of one tooth. Now move the string up and down. Do not pull the string back and forth or it will cut the gum.
Lift the string over the pointed gum and clean the other tooth.
When you have cleaned both teeth, release the string from one finger and pull it out from between the teeth. Then wrap it around your two middle fingers once again, and clean between the next two teeth.
Remember: clean teeth and good food will prevent almost all dental problems.
