I have my fair share of the juicy, delectable strawberry fruit in the summer, when they are at their ripest, juiciest and most flavorful. Of course, you can also use them in a variety of dishes in the summer, like strawberry shortcake, fruit cups, fruit salads, and of course jams and preserves, but in the winter they tend to taste grainy, hard and flavorless.
One thing you may not know about this delicious and nutritious fruit is, that beside the fact that it is actually an excellent anti inflammatory for things like pain and inflammation cause by arthritis, but strawberries are also a great teeth whitener.
You’d think logically that the opposite would be true, because of their color, and that they might stain the teeth, sort of like blueberries have been known to do, especially if they are in concentrated form, like in a jam of a pie, or a juice, but actually strawberries – and whole strawberries, not in juice or jam form or any other form where they are altered.
Apparently the malic acid in the strawberries is the culprit behind their dual purpose of whitening the teeth. It helps to remove the surface stains by basically eating away at them, but beware, you should never use this solution every day (rub your strawberries with teeth every day, that is), because the acid, when used too much, can actually start to wear away at the enamel on your teeth.
You may have heard this about people who eat lots of lemons or citrus, or favor lemon water every day, because the acids, although beneficial to your body, can actuall wear away at your teeth if they are exposed too much.
My favorite natural remedy for whitening the teeth is probably baking soda though. Although it’s not a dramatic teeth whitener, and you may need a more powerful, commercial teeth whitener to get extreme results if your teeth are very stained, you can definitely gain some benefit from using this daily with your toothpaste as a whitener and gentle polisher of your teeth.
Not only that, baking soda does a great job of getting rid of bad breath and keeping it fresher, longer, because baking soda is a known odor neutralizer. It’s also a dirt cheap teeth polisher and breath freshener, still only priced at under a buck for a container of it. Hey, it’s multi purpose too, you can use it for baking and cooking, and you can use it in your freezer and fridge to keep everything fresh tasting.
