How did people maintain their teeth before toothpaste?
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Because by far the most destructive force to our teeth is sugar, which was extremely rare back in the day. Even fruits had far natural sugars in them. It wasn’t until we concentrated it and put it in absolutely everything that dental hygiene really plummeted.
[Chew sticks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teeth-cleaning_twig) have been around since antiquity, I suppose knowing which species make good “chew sticks” would be socialized knowledge across cultures.
Fun Fact: Toothpaste isn’t actually doing much in terms of cleaning. Its job is more chemical treatment
The active cleaning if brushing your teeth is the brushing itself; Scraping away plaque and excess food.
People have been “brushing” their teeth for centuries in one way or another. The most primitive I can think of are things like chew sticks; Softwood twigs people chew on, and use to scrape the tongue.
In India, neem branch (young ones) would be used to brush with. Break a branch, chew one side to loosen the branch forming a kind of brush and then brush your teeth. Neem is an antibacterial, antiviral, great for teeth (and for health in general).
Well I’ll tell you from first hand experience,as I don’t really brush my teeth.
After every meal I drink some water, and I eat greens/fruits with every meal at the end, don’t know what it does but yeah.
As long as you don’t really have food stuck in places I think you’re fine… there have been times I literally didn’t brush for months at a time and I was fine. I just hate the feeling of the tooth brush, and the minty taste/feeling..I know it’s werid but hey, can’t stand the brush, so I don’t do it and adapt
I lived in Mali for a few years maybe thirty years ago, and in that time there were no toothbrushes anywhere. People brushed their teeth and gums with a short green stick (max 20 cm) from a neem tree. One end was chewed to form a sort of brush from the fibers, and there you go–no toothpaste, but the oils and sap from the fibers were a bit astringent and brushing teeth and gums did a great job.
Not a expert but i bet they didn’t really have to all the much? I mean ancient people ate much simpler then we do today way way way less sugar so i am assuming way way way less tooth decay issues
My granny told my mum “I dont know why you’re bothering with all those fancy toothpastes, i had all my own teeth until i was 41!” So yea, not very well…
One useful thing to note i didn’t see yet is about the food we eat. Iirc a typical 7 year old in the modern world has eaten more sugar than a typical person would in their entire lifetime hundreds of years ago. Diet has a big impact.
This is also why dental hygiene tends to get worse among the poorest people before it gets better, even in the modern world. The poorest typically live off staples like rice and beans, and similar local versions of this. And almost nothing else. Their dental hygiene, even without toothpaste, isn’t as bad as you’d expect. It gets worse tho as the family gets a little more income and starts buying meats and junk food. But not yet toothpaste regularly and similar things. I live in a community that’s at that second stage of development and dental hygiene is generally awful because the food available (and desired) is mostly junk food and cheap meats.
As people get a bit wealthier, they then start getting better dental hygiene from there and the curve trends back upwards. The dip in dental hygiene as the poorest get a little more income and dental hygiene gets worse for a bit is interesting tho.
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