How did people maintain their teeth before toothpaste?

Question

How did people maintain their teeth before toothpaste?

In: 684

Answer 1

Another major reason is the time before toothpaste was also the time before the processed food we typically eat today. If you had no processed sugar or flour in your diet you could probably get away with using twigs as a tooth brush as well.

Answer 2

As a parallel side note, modern agriculture has made fruit, etc. sweeter contributing to higher rates of bacteria fed on the teeth.