Foods Your Child Can't Eat With Braces

When your child has braces, they will be confronted with several goals, some of which may seem to conflict. Your child will need to maintain a healthy diet while trying to avoid damaging or breaking their braces with certain foods. Due to it being more difficult for your child to thoroughly brush his or her teeth while wearing braces, your child's teeth will be more susceptible to decay. In addition, when your child first begins wearing the braces, or after they have been tightened, your child may find that chewing is more painful for the first two or three days. He or she may need to make some adjustments when chewing because of the new alignment of the teeth created by the adjustment of the braces. These are some of the reasons why an orthodontist in Orlando, Dr. Baptiste, put some foods on the "Do Not Eat" list.

Foods Your Child Can't Eat with Braces

The foods that your orthodontist will want your child to avoid are the ones that can bend the archwires or cause the brackets to pop off of the teeth. In general, these are hard or chewy foods, which include:

• Popcorn, nuts, seeds and corn chips

• Hard taco shells

• Hard cookies or crackers

• Sticky and hard candy

• Chewing gum and bubble gum

• Ice, if your child chews the ice

Foods to Eat with Caution

Some orthodontists put sticky and stringy foods on the list of foods that should not be eaten with braces because these foods can cling to the spaces between the braces and teeth and be difficult to remove. Further, some sticky or stringy foods can wrap around and bend the archwires, pulling the teeth out of the proper alignment that the braces are meant to create.

Foods that remain caught between the teeth and braces can cause decay. If your child puts in the extra time needed to remove these foods, you might be able to convince your orthodontist to move them to the "yes" list. Liberal use of a water flosser, thorough brushing and vigorous rinsing with mouthwash may dislodge these foods. However, if your orthodontist still tells you to avoid these foods, abide by his/her rules. You don't want to have the braces straighten your child's teeth into a beautiful smile only to fill it with cavities.

Some other precautions that can be taken to change forbidden foods to permitted foods are:

• Softening raw vegetables by steaming them

• Cutting vegetables, such as carrots or celery into thin strips

• Cutting kernels of corn off of the cob before eating them

• Cutting hard fruits like apples into thin, small bites

• Softening croutons

• Softening or cutting up hard breads, such as hard rolls or French/Italian bread

• Cutting pizza, hamburgers and cheeseburgers, subs and other sandwiches into small bites

• Removing meat from the bone and cutting it into small bites

Foods for Braces

The foods that orthodontists recommend are soft foods that will not cause the brackets to pop off of your teeth, bend the archwires, or increase the risk of decay by becoming caught between the braces and teeth. These foods include:

• Yogurt

• Cheese

• Peanut butter and jelly

• Light crackers or cookies

• Hulless popcorn

• Soft fruits, such as bananas, melons and grapes

• Mashed potatoes or mashed sweet potatoes

• Ravioli, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese and other pasta dishes so long as the stringy noodles are cut into shorter lengths to keep them from wrapping around the archwires

Some Tips on Eating with New or Newly Tightened Braces

• Avoid hard, chewy and sticky foods from the orthodontist's list for two to three weeks while your child adjusts to the new alignment of his or her teeth.

• Take small bites or take bites with the back teeth instead of the front teeth, and chew slowly and carefully.

• Cut food up into small bites, especially chewy meats or stringy foods like spaghetti that could cause the brackets to pop off of your teeth or wrap around the archwires. Also, be careful with cheeses and other foods that become stringy when they melt.

• Cut sushi in half and eat one half at a time to avoid choking.

• Use caution with foods that might contain large chunks of meat, such as sandwich wraps or burritos. Either bite into them carefully or cut them up and eat them with a fork.

• Enjoy lots of smoothies.

• Indulge in lots of cold treats like ice cream, frozen yogurt, or popsicles to temporarily ease pain. Use products designed to numb the mouth and gums for longer lasting relief.

• Apply dental wax or dental silicone to your child's braces if mouth sores or dental brackets make eating too uncomfortable.

• Check out recipes for soft foods in cookbooks, such as The Braces Cookbook, The Braces Cookbook 2, Surviving Braces and the Tender Teeth Cookbook.

Just because someone in the family has braces doesn't mean you have to throw everything into a blender and puree it to death or turn everything into soup. No one has to become bored with the menu. You have options, lots of healthy and tasty options.