Servings of food vs Portion sizes

Understanding Portions vs. Serving Size

• A “portion” is how much food you choose to eat at one time, whether in a restaurant, from a package, or in your own kitchen.
• Portions can be big or small, it depends on how much you choose to eat.
• A serving is a measured amount of food or drink, such as one slice of bread or 8 ounces of milk.
• It is also the amount of food listed on a product’s Nutrition Facts.
• Sometimes, the portion size and serving size match; sometimes they do not.
• Keep in mind that the serving size on the Nutrition Facts is not a recommended amount of food to eat.
• It is a quick way of letting you know the calories and nutrients in a certain amount of food.
• Learning to recognize standard serving sizes can help you judge how much you are eating.
• When cooking for yourself, use measuring cups and spoons to measure your usual food portions and compare them to standard serving sizes from Nutrition Facts of packaged food products for a week or so.
• Put the suggested serving size that appears on the label on your plate before you start eating.
• This will help you see what one standard serving of a food looks like compared to how much you normally eat.

Retrieved by the National Institutes of Health

Eating for Healthy Teeth Tips

Eating for Healthy Teeth Tips

Avoid eating between meals:
-Fewer snacks will lead to less acid exposure for your teeth.
-If you snack, choose foods such as carrot sticks, or celery.

Reduce the consumption of the following beverages:
-Soft drinks or any other drinks that contain sugar.
-Coffee or tea with added sugar, cocoa and lemonade.
-Fruit juices
-The best time to consume them is with you meal.
-These beverages if consumed with a meal exposes your teeth to acids for a
shorter amount of time.

Reduce candy consumption:
-Hard and soft candies have enough sugar to increase the acid produced by bacteria to decay levels.
-Instead use sugarless varieties.

Consume very acidic foods (such as citrus fruits) in moderation:
-These food items can make the mouth more acidic contributing to a loss of minerals in the teeth.
-The effects of acid exposure occur overtime.

Don’t forget to brush:
-Brush your teeth after eating and after drinking sugary drinks.
-This will help remove the plaque bacteria that create the destructive acids.
-If you cannot brush after every meal, brush at least twice a day.

Food items to Consume
Best Food Choices: Cheese, chicken or other meats, or nuts. These foods actually may help protect tooth enamel. They do this by neutralizing acids or by providing the calcium and phosphorus needed to put minerals back in the teeth. Unsweetened tea and water, especially fluoridated water. Tea also has fluoride, which can strengthen tooth enamel. Water helps flush away bits of food. It also can dilute the sugar acids.

Moderate Food choices: Firm fruits such as apples and pears and vegetables contain natural sugars. Their high water content dilutes the effects of the sugars. These fruits also stimulate the flow of saliva, which fights bacteria and helps protect against decay.

Worst Food choices: Candy, cookies, cakes, crackers, breads, muffins, potato chips,
french fries, pretzels, bananas, raisins and other dried fruits. These foods provide
a source of sugar that certain bacteria can use to produce acid. The problem can

Eating for Healthy Teeth

Eating for Healthy Teeth



How eating affects your teeth

• In order to prevent cavities, the number of times you eat is just as important as the type of food you eat.
• Food affects your teeth and mouth even after you consumed a meal.
• Consuming desserts with dinner is less harmful to your teeth compared to when they are consumed as a separate snack.
• Research shows that the consumption of sweets between meals lead to higher rates of tooth decay compared to the consumption of sweets with meals.
• Bacteria in your mouth and on your teeth use simple carbohydrate foods to produce acids that causes tooth decay which lead to cavities.
• It also can have other long-term effects on your mouth.
• Learning how food affects your oral health is the first step toward eating for healthy teeth.
  

The health benefits of sugarfree gum in preventing cavities

• Xylitol is an ingredient in some sugarless gums.
• Research has shown xylitol works to reduce the amount of bacteria in the mouth.
• It also helps to increase the pH of your mouth and teeth making them less acidic.
• Most sugarless gums and sugarless candies increase the production of saliva, which guards your teeth against bacteria.

Eating for Healthy Teeth