What Foods can You Not Eat with Dentures?

Author : Efrain E. Silva

They say that, depending on the specific circumstances you were given, it is always a better idea to stop eating overly crunchy, hard to chew or just ‘beyond soft’ sorts of foods. The first one I like to point out in this list, if you will, would be none other than a man’s best friend, in the food category —- can you think of what it is before I point it out? If you thought, ‘chicken’, you thought wrong. It’s steak, of course, and how many steak houses would that mean we have to avoid, as men, just to take good care of our oral situation? I know I, for sure, tend to see at least one or two on every block when I drive around in my home town area, so that said, the temptation is very real…

Why steak? Why torture yourself in such a painful manner if you are like most guys? Well, I will tell you this — it is not an easy thing to give up or limit your monthly intake on, but it must be done. Steak, first of all, is known to — get this — destabilize the very teeth in the denture you hold. And if it were to be allowed to get worse than that, due to neglect of this, (you have been fore - warned, my good friend) you might even find yourself with dislodged teeth, and who wants, I dare to ask? Not me. And you can even get sore gums here.

Candy, whether hard or sticky (doesn’t really matter which) is also to go on the no list. For good. In fact, if the holiday season approaches you, and you feel tempted as we all do, find another way, a distraction that will keep your hand from dipping into the candy bowl (perhaps watch a really suspenseful movie or something, or just take your mind off of food altogether…go for a run). On that note, it is much, much harder to remove candy that has stuck to your dentures than it is to remove candy that you used to get stuck in your teeth, so do not even toy with the idea. If, however, like many of us, you were born with an ‘extra sweet tooth’, as some would like to call it, then you can instead try this — make some banana bread. Or, heck, eat a few cupcakes. These are the softer sweets that your dentures will not say not to, as opposed to bristed candy or toffee bites.

Food for thought (he heh) : Stay away from popcorn, too, even if you are the most vicious eater of it. If you love those movie nights, with your bowl next to you, discipline yourself to fully abstain, just like a nun from a strip club, but for your own good. Popcorn’s not your bud. Get that through your head. Kernels easily get trapped in between new teeth, and they are such a pain to get out. Why bother?