There are many hard, crunchy, sticky and chewy food to avoid with braces on as they can cause parts of the brace to break and come off.
These foods include:
- Hard sweets e.g Toffee, Caramels, Boiled sweets, chewing gum. Alternative option would be chocolate but let it melt in the mouth of break off with your hand and chew using the back teeth.
- Hard breads e.g French baguette, crust on toast, crust on pizza, garlic bread. Alternative option would be a soft wrap and to avoid as best as you can to eat the crust on toast and pizza or cut it up into small piece and use the back teeth.
- Apple, pears and raw carrots must be cut into smaller pieces and to chew using the back teeth.
- Nuts are usually very hard so an alternative would be a nut butter e.g peanut butter, almond butter.
- Corn on the cob to be avoided alternatively using cutlery to remove the corn from the cob or buying loose corn instead.
- Popcorn, please make sure you are eating fully popped popcorn as some can still be half popped in their kernels.
- Ice in drinks, please do not bite down and eat the ice in your drink.
Hard objects to avoid:
- Biting down on pens and pencils in school
- Biting on zips on jackets and jumpers
- Biting fingernails
- Biting down on the aglet on the drawstring on the hoodie
