Nearly three in 10 adults say they have felt self-conscious about their teeth in the past year, and 12 percent avoid smiling or laughing because of these anxieties. Many are giving up coffee to fix it. Yet most do not know that tea and the other swaps people make to be healthier, stain teeth more than the drink they gave up.
Arif Al-Suwaidi, co-founder and CEO at Zental Dental Clinic, has flagged the four healthy habits staining teeth the most, and dentist hacks on how to avoid damage.
1. Swapping Coffee for Tea Stains Teeth More, Not Less
Green, matcha, or black tea is full of tannins, which are the compounds that give it its taste but also make the color stick to teeth. Unlike coffee, which washes off, lab tests have found tea leaves the hardest stain to remove of any drink tested, even with a toothbrush.
Dentist’s hack: Finish your tea in 10 minutes instead of an hour, and rinse with water after. Add a dash of milk to bind the tannins before they reach your teeth.
2. Drinking Morning Berry Smoothies Is Worse Than Eating the Fruit
Most fruit smoothies have a low pH, often acidic enough to soften enamel and leave the color on your teeth, with dark fruit like berries, cherries, and pomegranate among the worst. Meanwhile, eating the same fruit whole makes you chew, and chewing makes the saliva that washes that color off.
Dentist’s hack: Eat your fruit whole with a meal instead of blending it. If it must be a smoothie, add plain yoghurt or milk to increase the pH, and finish it in one sitting.
3. Paying More for Functional Drinks Can Worsen Your Teeth
Golden and pink lattes, now on the menu in most coffee shops, contain turmeric and beetroot, which are two pigments strong enough to dye a chopping board. One cup is enough to leave color on your teeth, and it stays there until you brush it off.
Dentist’s hack: Brush within an hour, because this color sits on the surface first and can come off easily before it settles. Never leave turmeric paste on your teeth as a whitener.
4. Sipping Fruit Water All Day Stains Teeth with No Color
Lemon, lime, or berries in a bottle drop the water to around pH 3, well below the 5.5 where enamel starts to dissolve. Sip it all day, and the acid wears the enamel thin until the yellow layer underneath shows through, with no color involved at all.
Dentist’s hack: Keep a plain water bottle next to the fruit one and alternate between them so your teeth get a break from the acid, and always wait 30 minutes before brushing again.
What I see now is people taking one drink and making it last all day. A bottle of fruit water on the desk at 9 is still there at 12, and a smoothie gets nursed through a whole morning,” says Al-Suwaidi. “Your spit is what keeps teeth clean and white: it washes the color off and hardens the enamel back up, but it needs about half an hour of nothing to do it. Someone who drinks a coffee in the morning and stops gets that half hour of recovery. Someone sipping something healthy for three hours never gets that, and that is the fastest way to lose the white in your teeth.”
