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The Fourth of July is a great time to get together with friends and family members for BBQ, games, fireworks, and other celebrations in honor of our country’s independence. While your fellow revelers eat hot dogs and wave flags, you can impress them by sharing these fascinating facts and historical tidbits about some of our country’s traditions and symbols from the team at Dr. John Rottschalk Dental Group.

The Statue of Liberty

With a torch in one hand and a tablet in the other, the Statue of Liberty is one of the most iconic and recognizable symbols of our country. However, as recognizable as certain parts of the statue are, not many people know that broken shackles, which represent oppression and tyranny, are lying at Lady Liberty’s feet. According to the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, the copper-plated lady weighs in at a whopping 450,000 tons and has been holding her torch up for more than 125 years, which must make for some impressive arm muscles.

Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest

Since 1916, people have been flocking to Coney Island on the Fourth of July to witness what some people call the “superbowl of competitive eating.” Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating contest challenges competitors to devour as many hot dogs as they can in just ten minutes, with the current record holder swallowing a whopping 68 hot dogs! If you’d like to witness this bizarre and frenzied eating competition but you won’t be anywhere near Coney Island on the fourth, don’t worry. ESPN has been broadcasting this popular event for several years, so you can watch from the comfort of your couch while you eat a reasonably portioned meal.

The History Behind Fireworks

Viewing the nighttime fireworks display is exciting way to finish off the fourth. Many people know that these brilliant displays probably originated with the Chinese. However, many historians also believe that fireworks were stumbled upon when the Chinese roasted bamboo sticks over fires and watched them explode. After many years of roasting the sticks, a group of alchemists created an early form of gunpowder, which they stuffed into the bamboo sticks to create an even more powerful explosion, paving the way for the today’s modern fireworks.

Whether you’re planning on visiting the Statue of Liberty, watching fireworks in Fairview Heights, IL, or even participating in a hot dog eating contest, Drs. Rottschalk, Acker, and Froidcoeur and our team hope you have a safe and fun-filled holiday. Happy Fourth of July!

There are numerous ways to prevent cavities. Some, like brushing your teeth regularly and visiting our Fairview Heights, IL office, are more obvious than others. Beyond the standard methods of preventing cavities there are a number of different ways to keep your mouth healthy that you might also find surprising.

1. Reduce your consumption of carbs and sugar.

The consumption of sugar is ultimately the biggest catalyst for cavities. By limiting the sugar you consume both at meals and while snacking you will in turn be preventing cavities. But this goes for all carbs, not just sugar. See, even more complex, lower glycemic, carbs can lead to cavities in your mouth, so the best way to prevent them is to limit your carbohydrate intake. This is not to say that you have to cut out carbs all together, but by reducing your intake, you will prevent cavities and it can also lead to a healthier body overall.

2. Rinse your mouth with food-grade hydrogen peroxide.

For some people this may seem a little odd, but washing your mouth out with a food-grade hydrogen peroxide is an excellent way to prevent cavities. Doing so will kill harmful bacteria that accumulates in your mouth much in the same way applying the anti-septic to a cut does. That said, when you rinse your mouth out similar to how you would use a mouth wash, you want to make sure you don't swallow the hydrogen peroxide, spit it out instead.

3. Use a straw.

If you are someone that drinks a lot of sugary beverages a great way to prevent cavities is to use a straw. This way the sugar in the beverage does not come into contact with your teeth as much as it would if you were to drink straight from a glass, can, cup, or bottle.

4. Chew gum.

Chewing gum is another viable way of preventing cavities. You, of course, will need to chew a sugarless gum flavored with a substitute like Xylitol, and preferably with a cavity fighting ingredient in it.

5. Eat cheese.

Plain and simple cheese has a protein called casein which helps build calcium in your teeth which is vital to the integrity of your mouth and preventing cavities.

Healthy teeth make you happy to share your smile with the world. But there’s more to your smile than its beauty! There’s a lot of hard work going on, as well.

Teeth Are Designed for Healthy Eating and Digestion

Because humans are omnivores, we can eat both meat and plants. That’s why our teeth have different shapes—they’re designed to help us process different types of food. 

• Incisors, our front teeth, have sharpish edges to help cut through meats and other firm foods when we bite.
• Canines, the pointed teeth, help tear food into bite-size portions.
• Premolars are flat topped teeth with two cusps, raised points which help grind food.
• Molars are the flat-topped teeth in the rear of the mouth. They have four cusps to grind and crush food into a paste-like consistency. 

So: Incisors and canines bite and tear food into smaller pieces, which molars and premolars then crush and grind into a paste. Bite, tear, crush, grind—why all this food aggression? Because that’s the key to healthy digestion! 

Chewing is the first step in digestion. Effective chewing:

• Starts the process of breaking food down into digestible particles.
• Increases saliva production. Saliva binds food particles so that we can swallow easily.
• Expands the surface area of food particles, which allows the digestive system to extract nutrients more efficiently. 

When you’ve lost teeth or biting causes you pain, it can be hard to chew food as thoroughly as you should. Swallowing can be difficult. Digestion can suffer. In fact, healthy teeth are essential to healthy digestion. 

Teeth Have Other Important Jobs As Well

• Speaking

Our teeth work with our tongues and lips to form many of the phonetic sounds which make up speech. Missing or misaligned teeth can affect speech development in children and pronunciation in children and adults.

• Creating a Healthy Bite

To eat efficiently—and comfortably—we need a healthy bite. If your dentist or orthodontist has diagnosed a malocclusion, it means that your teeth don’t fit together properly because of misaligned teeth and/or jaws. Biting and chewing put hundreds of pounds of pressure on your teeth and jaws, and a bad bite can mean damaged teeth and painful jaw problems. 

• Shaping the Face

Just like our bone structure, our teeth help give shape to our faces. Missing teeth can affect the appearance of chins, lips, and cheeks. Replacing lost teeth with dentures, bridges, or implants (which look and function like natural teeth) can restore facial symmetry.

Teeth Are Only Up to the Job with Your Help

You’re in charge! Daily brushing and flossing, eating a healthy diet, and regular visits to your dentist for exams and cleanings will help make sure your teeth are able to perform their many duties. 

If you’re experiencing tooth pain, if you have concerns about alignment, or if you’ve lost a tooth or teeth, talk to your dentist to learn how to get your teeth back to working their best for you—and be ready to share that beautiful, hard-working smile!

Getting a cavity seems like delayed punishment for eating that special dessert every weekend or for the few days you forgot to floss. When you are doing everything right with minimal exception and a cavity is diagnosed, it is discouraging. Knowing how cavities form and what causes them is valuable in knowing how to prevent them. In this blog post, Drs. Rottschalk, Acker, and Froidcoeur will help you understand cavities!

A cavity is not a one-time event. It is actually a symptom of a disease called caries. Tooth decay is a result of an active infection and condition in the mouth. There are ingredients to this infection, which include bacteria, acid, your tooth, and a food source. The main bacterial culprit is S. Mutans. Bacteria live in a housing structure called biofilm. This offers them protection, food, and an ideal replicating environment.

Biofilm can be healthy if there is a balance of good bacteria. When you have caries, the numbers of “bad” bacteria increase and produce an environment where they thrive and therefore cause tooth decay. A main indicator of this is a pH measurement of your saliva.

Several factors can influence the biofilm pH. Foods and beverages all have different pH levels. The lower the number, the higher the acidity. Since acid promotes tooth decay, a beverage like soda will promote a cavity. Water, being neutral, is a good choice to promote healthy oral pH. Healthy eating can still cause cavities. Here is an example of a highly acidic, yet traditionally healthy meal:

Toast with store-bought strawberry jam, and a cup of cottage cheese topped with fresh cranberries.

Instead, here is a better choice, which involves mixing acidic healthy foods with alkaline (non-acidic) foods to reduce the overall pH:

Toast with almond butter, and Greek yogurt topped with fresh blueberries.

The first example will result in a very low pH in the mouth and even in the rest of the body. The second meal mixes highly acidic blueberries with an alkaline Greek yogurt. Dairy products from cows are highly acidic. Toast is acidic because of the yeast and almonds are alkaline.

A natural buffer is saliva. Whenever mouth breathing or medications compromise the saliva flow, the pH is going to drop and caries can go rampant. Getting a cavity is not just about the sweets or forgotten flossing sessions. It is about the pH levels and bacterial management.

For more helpful tips about how to avoid cavities, contact our Fairview Heights, IL office.