Foods to Avoid

When you have braces, there are some food you must avoid:

Hard and sticky foods can cause brackets to pop off and wires to bend improperly. Each loose bracket means an added month to treatment length. When wires are bent improperly, they move teeth into a wrong position and extra time is needed to move the teeth back into their correct position, extending total treatment time. Some hard and sticky foods to avoid: popcorn (kernels can get stuck under your gums causing pain and swelling), whole nuts, ice cubes, corn-on-the-cob, corn chips, crispy tacos and taco chips, beef jerky, hard candies, pizza with hard crust, gum, taffy, licorice, caramels, “Laffy Taffy”, “Tootsie Roll Pops”, popcorn balls, caramel apples and other similar hard/sticky foods. Some foods to cut into bite-size pieces or thin slices: carrots, celery, apples and other crisp fruits and vegetables. While avoiding the above foods, try to stop these habits that can break the braces: chewing on pens, pencils, or fingernails, thumb sucking and lip biting.

All sugary foods should be avoided. Brushing and flossing with braces takes time. Plaque left on the teeth combines with sugar to cause permanent white spots of decalcification around the edges of the brackets. Fluoride brushing gel helps prevent this, but not eating sugary foods or drinking sugary beverages, in combination with thorough daily brushing and flossing, is the very best!

Highly acidic foods and drinks such as lemon juice, lots of orange juice and soft drinks are hard on tooth enamel and can cause the cement used with some braces to loosen.

Staining foods (tomato sauce, mustard, coffee, tea, red juices and wines) may cause clear and light-colored ties to discolor. We suggest choosing dark, opaque ties to avoid lots of staining between appointments (we do change ties at each regular appointment).