Supertooth and Good Food Friends © Plaque Watch School Project for better tooth care. Home * Brush * Floss * Chewing * Experiments * Supertooth book

Experiments with a glass model teaching aid of a deep fissure in grooves on back teeth, replicates chewing and shows how brushing with toothpaste cannot remove red food dye from the fissure, but chewing toothpaste with suitable fibre like the foam strip with outer cup shaped cells that force the toothpaste to displace all the red dye and prevent food being trapped.

Photo 1. Two 35mm square strips of glass clamp an X shaped thin Teflon gasket with a paper clip. Simulate chewing or flossing
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Photo 2. The glass model is forced into partly dissolved red jelly confection that fills the bottom of the X Teflon gasket.
Photo 3. Brushing cannot remove the red confection nor force toothpaste between the glass strips.
Photo 4. Simulated chewing forces toothpaste on the end of a foam strip, between the glass strips displacing red confection.
Photo 5. X-ray of tooth after chewing Barium Sulphate showing where food is trapped while eating.

Floss then chew fluoride toothpaste on a foam strip before brushing after breakfast and before bed to improove fluoride access.

Chew non-cariogenic food like nuts before eating to help prevent food being trapped and changed to acid. Also after every meal or snack to help saliva displace trapped food that may contain carbohydrate like sugar or starch, neuralise acid and repair demineralised tooth.