Too many of my friends have had to get braces

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like, seriously

did evolution go all like "fuck decent teeth!" or something with the recessive whatever giving people symmetric teeth against common nature

also why is it exactly that we have to perform so much tooth maintenance anyway

I don't see all the other animals brushing their teeth and they don't seem to live the vast majority of their lives with toothaches (unless it just so happens that they got used to it and eventually just accepted rotting teeth as something to deal with once they mature)

MadassAlex

There are a few answers to this.

Firstly, asymmetric teeth are natural, except in extreme cases. Most people, without the help of braces and other dental technology, would have imperfect teeth. Secondly, we live a lot longer and have vastly different diets today than some thousands of years in the past. If your lifespan was between twenty and thirty years some thousands of years ago, dental hygiene for the sake of tooth upkeep isn't going to be especially important. And anyway, with diets being dominated by grains, vegetables and fruits moreso than meats or anything else back then, tooth decay would set in much more slowly.

In many ways, modern dentistry is a response to the way human beings have altered their eating patterns.

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with diets being dominated by grains, vegetables and fruits moreso than meats or anything else back then

say wuuuut

(It seems that my own teeth have specific resistance against meat messing it up then.)

Though my teeth are now not symmetric either since a dentist literally scraped some parts off and grinded some which now makes them uneven.

I shouldn't have trusted a dentist that had worse teeth than mine

MadassAlex

Depends. If you brush your teeth on a regular basis, it doesn't matter a whole lot what you eat. But if you're a hunter-gatherer and don't, cleaning your teeth comes down to eating things that do that naturally. 

Nyktos

And anyway, with diets being dominated by grains, vegetables and fruits moreso than meats or anything else back then, tooth decay would set in much more slowly.

Fruit is pretty bad for your teeth actually.

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my dentist told me to not drink juice because sugar

and I was like

FUCK THAT SHIT

next someone's gonna tell me to stop consuming as much salt

i'd rather avoid eating to begin with than significantly lower the salt content of what I eat

actually now that I think about it

what if you brushed your teeth

with salt (before the invention of effective toothpaste)

lol

MadassAlex

^^ Depends which ones. Citrus fruits would be, for instance, but I can't see bananas being particularly bad and apples work in tandem with more standard forms of dental hygiene. 

Schitzo

We're all gonna die from the dumbest shit. It helps to know that.

Crimson

next someone's gonna tell me to stop consuming as much salt

Depends, if you have high blood pressure or have a family history of it, you should be mindful of how much sodium you eat. You should be fine, unless you're eating entire bags of chips or shitloads of ramen on a regular basis.

Basically, anything is unhealthy in certain circumstances or just plain excess.

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Apples have always bothered my teeth more than oranges and tangerines for some reason.

MadassAlex

Apples might feel bothersome, but I guarantee you that their texture actually helps clean your teeth. They're by no means a replacement for brushing and flossing, but an apple or two each day can go a fair way towards keeping your teeth healthy. 

Nyktos

Apples are pretty acidic. Cleaning teeth vs taking a layer off is not always a clear distinction.

Eroding your enamel vs just letting them rot is certainly preferable but far from ideal.

Ironweaver

I wore night braces for a year or two when I was 8-9 years old.

The teeth returned to their former, crooked position by the time I was 13. Fuck that shit.

MadassAlex

^^ It's not the acidity, but the texture of the apple. Scrape scrape. 

Nyktos

The texture is good, yes. The acidity is not.

ninjaclown

^^I thought people got braces in their teens, and then used retainers to ensure they stay that way.

Bee

I'd assume corn is pretty bad for your teeth too.  Seeing how it gets wedged into everything and never fucking comes out without floss.

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^ That problem always comes up more often for me with meat than corn.