Dentures aren’t natural teeth. In fact, many dentures aren’t really anything like natural teeth. If your dentures aren’t functioning like natural teeth, you may have to modify your eating habits in many ways. Here are some of the most common changes to eating required by dentures.
Different Chewing Motions
You may think chewing is a simple up-and-down motion, but it’s actually a lot more complicated than that. The natural chewing motions are a combination of up and down and lateral motions. When you try to chew with this type of motion, traditional dentures are likely to be dislodged. Now you have to learn to use just a straight up and down chewing motion. This will help keep dentures in place while chewing.
Cutting Food up More
With dentures, you’ll also have to learn to cut up your food into smaller pieces. Dentures are much less suited for cutting food than natural teeth (especially if they have plastic teeth). So you have to spend more time cutting your food into smaller pieces than you used to. Large pieces of food may just be unmanageable with dentures.
This may also include foods that you didn’t used to cut up. For example, sandwiches, pizza, corn on the cob, or ribs. The normal motion of eating sandwiches requires that your teeth come together in the sandwich and grab it securely before tearing off a bite. However, this doesn’t work with traditional dentures. Traditional dentures just aren’t secure enough for this. So you have to cut up foods you would normally bite into.
Modifying the Texture of Foods
You may find that some foods just have to be of a different texture in order for you to eat them. For example, crusty breads may be off limits. You can eat the soft interior of the bread, but the crust is too hard for your dentures. You may also have similar difficulty with chewy cookies and candies, tacos, raw vegetables, and many types of meats. You’ll have to avoid foods that are sticky and can dislodge your dentures.
You may have to cook foods differently so that they are easier for you to eat.Instead of steak, you may find it easier to eat a boiled pot roast.
The extreme form of texture modification is pureeing your food. Few people–even those with traditional dentures–have to resort to this step.
Not Eating Certain Foods
Unfortunately, it’s all too common that people with dentures have to give up some of their favorite foods. Often, these are foods that can’t be managed in other ways, such as careful cutting, chewing, or cooking. Or these are foods that have to be modified so much (such as pureeing) that they are no longer enjoyable to eat.
Change Your Dentures, Not Your Eating
Your dentures are supposed to help you, but with traditional dentures, you can end up changing your whole life around their limitations.
It doesn’t have to be that way. If you’re tired of letting your dentures control your life, we can help. With FOY ® Dentures, implant dentures, and many other modern options for quality dentures, we can help you continue enjoying food, even with dentures.
To learn more about your options for quality dentures, please call (803) 781-9090 today for an appointment with a denture dentist at Smile Columbia Dentistry.
