Md> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
 Md> Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 00:04:41 -0800 (PST)
 >From: [log in to unmask]
 Md> To: Stuart Smith <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask]
 Md> Subject: Re: veg-raw: The end of flossing? (fwd)

 Md> At 05:45 AM 3/25/96 PST, Stuart Smith wrote:
 >In article <[log in to unmask]> you write:
 >>I'm getting quite intrigued by the arguments for a raw vegan  diet and
 >>wondered if it had the added benefit of making flossing and/or brushing
 >>unnecessary.

 >It has little to do with food stuck in your teeth.  You will always have
 >some food particles left in your mouth after eating, no way to avoid it.
 >However, mother nature has been dealing with teeth and decay for millions
 of years.  Healthy saliva a) provides a hostile environment for destructive
 >bacteria b) reacts with any exposed dentene (sp?? the part of the tooth
 >under the enamel) causing it to harden into new enamel.  Healthy teeth
 are nourished from within and will resist bacterial decay.

A couple of comments.  The most severe threat to raw fooders teeth
is consuming citrus and other acid fruits, like pineapple and tomato.
The acids _will_ dissolve calcium out of the teeth as these fruits are
eaten out of hand.  Juicing and drinking with a straw will minimize
contact with, and thus damage to, the teeth.  The signs of dissolving
teeth are: 1> gum line erosion, a little channel cut at the base of
the tooth near the gum.  You can feel this with a fingernail; 2> pain
on eating dried fruit because of the high sugar concentration, and 3>
a gradual transparency and eventual chipping of the cutting edge of
the incisors, again due to loss of calcium out of the calcium/protein
matrix (tooth).
    If anyone doesn't believe that citrus dissolves teeth, rub your
teeth together, eat an orange, and rub again.  The gritty feel is a
result of the surface of the tooth being etched by the acid.  One can
cover a sea shell half way in citrus juice overnight and see the
etching the next morning.  I did a lot of damage to my teeth by eating
a case of citrus a week for several years, until I understood what was
happening.  I met a person who lived in a citrus grove, and did a pure
citrus diet for several months and dissolved all his teeth down to the
gumline.  I now call citrus "the seductive assassin" because one feels
so good on a high citrus diet.
    The other toothy dilemma is periodontal disease.  Apparently, this
occurs because our naturally bacteriostatic saliva loses this
capability.  Unfortunately, this seems not to return automatically as
a result of a clean diet.  I suspect that the mercury in
silver-amalgam filling material poisons the local tissue and otherwise
interferes with the bacteriostatic properties.  Chelation therapy,
which pulls arterial plaque and heavy metals, including mercury, out
of the body may help, but this is just a hypothesis to be tested when
I get rich enough to do so.
    Products by Biotene have enzymes in them that kill bacteria, and
this should be preferable to products that kill bacteria with poisons.
[Insert normal disclamer here.]