Title.
I know to brush before eating breakfast, but does coffee affect this?
Thanks!
In: Biology
You don’t necessarily have to brush before eating breakfast. It’s just recommended to wait a little while (usually 30-60 minutes) after meals, before you brush your teeth.
Some sources say to do this mainly after consuming acidic foods. The reason being that acid softens your tooth enamel, and so brushing your teeth in this weakened state can damage them. It also helps to rinse your mouth with water after eating anything acidic, to get rid of the acids faster.
Other sources say *all* foods lower the pH inside your mouth (making it more acidic), and so to wait after consuming any food or drink. The reasoning behind this seems to be that your mouth bacteria consume sugars and starches and turn them into acid. This is a little confusing, since removing these bacteria (and the food they munch on and the plaque they build up), and stopping them from producing acid is the main reason for brushing your teeth the first place. So I’m not sure whether to believe this as I can’t find an unequivocal expert source on this. I guess it depends on how quickly bacteria turn food into acid. If it’s fast, then it makes sense that you’d have to wait a while for your saliva pH to return to normal. If it’s slow, then it makes more sense to get in there quickly and remove the bacteria and remaining food particles from your teeth by brushing them, before the bacteria can do their tooth-decaying business.
In any case, if you can wait a while after eating breakfast, it’s totally fine to brush after, rather than before. Brushing before is fine too as far as dental hygiene is concerned, but might make your breakfast taste bad if you eat it soon after. So either way, you want to leave some time between brushing and eating (or vice versa).
As for coffee, it is only mildly acidic and, if you drink it black, contains little or no starch or sugar. So I don’t see a strong reason to wait after (only) drinking coffee, before brushing your teeth. Having coffee *with* breakfast shouldn’t make a difference one way or another.
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