EatQOD

Tomato juice, V8, orange juice, oranges, water with lime juice, soft drinks, coffee, tea, salads with vinegar - all of these are low pH foods, and exposure to low pH (acidity) can make teeth more sensitive. (Some problem with excessively acid water in swimming pools was reported a while back). What happens is, the acidity in these foods actually softens up and destroys tooth enamel. Once it's lost, you can't get it back. This acidity is not a problem for the body, since most of these organic acids are metabolized and actually generate alkali. But the food, at the time it's taken, can be on the acid side. (Complicated to explain - you need to know about how organic acids are metabolized).

If you have sensitive teeth, check with your dentist. And if you have enamel erosion (a number of people do, apparently), avoid eating oranges, buy pH-corrected orange juice, and you may try less acid forms of veggie juice (to me, without measuring it, President's Choice V10 veggie juice tastes like it is less acidy to me (see V8 alternatives in the Forum). Also, if you are heating up veggie juice as a soup - make sure to add some sodium bicarbonate (1/8 teaspoon of baking soda to 8 oz of juice) to lower its acidity (if you add too much, though, it tastes terrible) - or add a bit of milk or cream, etc. Also, don't add lemon or lime juice to your hot water or tea to flavor it. Avoid soft drinks and carbonated water. Dry white wine also, apparently, can be a problem. Add milk to your coffee or tea. Avoid vinegar as much as you can in your salad dressings, as well as vinegar-preserved fish (herring) and preserved vegetables (including pickles).

Also, don't brush your teeth right after a meal. Brushing apparently makes the loss of softened enamel worse.

Found a good article. This is a problem that is just hitting the radar screen among dentists. A number of young children have it (Cuban kids who eat oranges all the time, soft drink fanatics, sour gum users, and the like).

Article is here:
http://www.nature.com/bdj/journal/v186/ ... 00037a.pdf

For more info, google: dental erosion acid food

JT

Found this interesting link:

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/lacf-phs.html

Nothing much to see here folks - looks like everything we eat has some "surface acidity". I use this term, because you need to understand that, after metabolism, a lot of foods that are initially acid can actually help alkalinize the body, due to generation of bicarbonate.

But on a practical scale, you can buy ph-neutralized orange juice. Also, from the outset, we recommended adding a pinch of bicarb to veggie juice if you're going to take this hot. For some reason, it tastes awful if you add too much though. Someone needs to get out a pH meter and figure out the best amounts.

I don't think this is a critically important issue for most people. Bigger problems are soft drinks, sports drinks (soft drinks usually have phosphoric acid), biting into oranges (found a paper where Cuban kids had enamel erosion, across their front teeth, since they would snack on oranges every day), etc. etc. But this is largely an unknown area with little good research published.

JT

Well, I'm eating less yogurt or kefir now. Switched to lactose-reduced milk - less acidy. Still using Kefir for dressings.

Also started to add lactose-reduced milk to my tomato/vegetable juice. A much tastier idea for making it less acidy than a touch of baking soda when doing soups as well. I like the taste - makes the tomato/veg juice more like a creamy tomato soup.

JT

here is an article that appeared in Canada.com

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/natio ... 38&k=86335

OTTAWA - An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but dentists now say it could also leave you wearing dentures.

The high acid content of fizzy drinks, fruits, vegetables and other healthy snacks actually wears away tooth enamel and many Canadian dentists report the recent trend toward healthy eating means nearly all of their patients are showing signs of wear on their teeth.

''We see this type of thing in everyone even people with the healthiest teeth,'' said Dr. Shaireen Lalani, a dentist based in Vancouver. ''The thing is is everyone is affected, even young children.''

So in fact, if you do find that you are getting some tooth sensitivity, you might consider doing what I'm doing now: I'm subbing out Lactaid for yogurt, and fresh veggies for tomato juice, and I'm careful with white wine (quite acid) and even acidic fruits like oranges and apples.

JT