If you wear dentures, one of the common problems you may face is the types of food you can consume. There are many reasons older adults decide to wear dentures, from replacing lost teeth to restoring gum disease. However, the objective of wearing dentures is pretty much the same, and that’s to allow someone to achieve better oral health and continue enjoying a good quality of life. While the popular belief is that you will have to give up your favorite foods while wearing dentures, that is not entirely true. At the end of the day, it’s all about moderation, so you can find that many dentists and other medical professionals advocate for following a balanced diet. As such, here are some of the best and worst foods for dentures.
Good Foods for Dentures
Since you’re trying to not displace the dentures as much, the foods you eat should be soft in texture in order to not put too much pressure on the gums. Therefore, here are some foods or meals that will make your dentures feel comfortable:
- Soft Meats: The longer you cook the meat, the more tender it will be. What’s more, most of the time, slow-cooking meat allows the flavors and aromas to be more intense. Some of the meats we recommend are pot roast, pulled pork, and beef brisket. For a meal, you can accompany these meats with pasta, soft bread, rice, porridge, soups, or broths.
- Cooked Vegetables: While you should avoid raw vegetables as much as possible since they have a tough texture, that’s not to be said for cooked ones. By boiling or steaming greens, the food has a much softer texture that goes well with many meals.
- Ripe Fruits: Many ripe fruits are already soft, so you can eat them immediately. Some fruits recommendations include oranges, watermelon, bananas, and peaches, to name a few. To bring it up a notch, top your bowl of yogurt or ice cream with these fruits for some added nutrients.
- Chocolate: Yes, you heard that right. This may be the most surprising as many people may not expect chocolate to be suitable food for dentures. Well, as long as the chocolate is not loaded with nuts, toffee, and other hard foods, sweet toothers can still satisfy their cravings every once in a while.
Bad Foods for Dentures
When it comes to bad foods for your dentures, listed below are some foods you should largely avoid or only consume in small amounts:
- Caffeine: Regardless of whether you’re drinking coffee or tea, any beverages or foods with high amounts of caffeine can cause the mouth to get dehydrated. In this case, the dentures will be extremely uncomfortable and even painful for some people. What’s more, coffee can potentially result in the dentures getting stained.
- Sticky Candy: This shouldn’t come as a surprise since sticky candy is and will always be bad for our teeth. If you do consume sticky candies, they will eventually dislodge your teeth.
- Nuts: Since foods with hard textures should be avoided at all costs, nuts are no doubt one of the worst foods to consume. Not only will they cause pain, but they can also get under your partials, resulting in the dentures being unstable over time.
