Interesting about the sugar and teeth. Do you really only brush your teeth twice a week?
I had tooth decay issues as a kid, the dentist kept telling my parents I was eating too many sweets/too much sugar, creating a lot of guilt for all of us. My family (no one else had teeth issues) all ate the same foods, we ate home cooked whole foods daily with some sugar as extras (sugary cereals, jam, marmalade, nutella etc. for toast, ice cream as a treat etc).
*rant alert!*
I was portrayed by my dentist as greedy and my parents were portrayed as irresponsible. I was put on a strict no sugar diet for 6 weeks (at the age of about 6). I remember my grandma getting sweets for everyone except me and giving me sugar free gum LOL. After my sugar free detox I went back to the dentist, he practically accused me and my mother of cheating on the sugar free thing (more guilt!) and insisted that I have a “flouride treatment”. Basically I had to sit with trays of weird fluouride gel in my mouth a few times. My teeth got no better and we just learned to live with the fact that I was a greedy pig and that’s why my teeth were awful. Served me right huh?
Anyway, my teeth are not too bad as an adult, I do have receding gums though but according to my dentist, very healthy teeth with no sign of infection. She isn’t sure why I have receding gums, seems like some kind of tissue weakness rather than any infection being present.
My theory is that the fluoride treatment I was subjected to caused some kind of damage – the soft tissues in my mouth have never quite been the same since (not helped by having metal braces as a teenager also). My MIL is German, they are very anti fluoride in Germany and she was shocked when I told her I had to sit with trays of fluoride in my mouth for an hour at a time!