What Is a Cavity?

A cavity is a hole, whether it is in your teeth or in the ground. Holes appear in your teeth when there is a mineral imbalance in the body. Chiefly, the calcium-phosphorus mineral relationship is the determining factor in cavity formation.
When the diet is excessively high in phosphorus, or in foods commonly known as “acid-forming,” a calcium deficiency may occur. This deficiency is usually not due to inadequate calcium in the diet (although it may be if the diet is especially poor), but due to such foods as white sugar, refined flour and grains, and other processed carbohydrates that deplete the body of vitamin and mineral reserves (including calcium).
Cavities are created by the imbalances created in the body by improper foods. Consequently, thorough brushing and flossing of the teeth are ineffective in preventing cavities if a substandard diet is still followed. Healthy teeth can only be built by a healthy diet and lifestyle—not by fluoridated water or “whiter than white” toothpastes.

The Truth About Dental Health

For the truth about nutrition and tooth decay, read the book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price, DDS. Dr. Price traveled throughout the world to study the effect of various diets on dental health.
He found, without exception, that the people who ate diets free of refined and processed foods were almost completely free of tooth decay. In addition, these people had excellent bone structure, jaw formation, and were well adapted for chewing, singing, and speaking. (In other words, not only were cavities not a concern, but a natural diet does not cause malocclusion, or deformity of the dental bite.)
He also discovered that within so short a time as a single generation, eating refined foodstuffs resulted in narrow dental arches, malocclusion, and rampant tooth decay. His book has pictures of families that show the older generation who ate unrefined and natural foods with perfect “choppers.” The younger members of the family who ate the “civilized” foods, like candy, soft drinks, canned foods, and refined grains, had teeth with holes, snags, and decay.
His conclusion: rough, unrefined, whole, unprocessed, and untampered foods promote the highest degree of dental health. Without exception, the eating of modern foods produced dental deterioration.
Although the medical establishment’s standard position is that tooth decay is caused by food particles stuck to the outside of the teeth, even the Journal of the American Medical Association recognized that tooth decay dropped when a more natural diet is followed. In an issue of this magazine, Dr. James H. Shaw reported on the improvement in dental health that occurred when certain countries during World War II had to revert back to a traditional, unrefined diet:
“Careful study of these countries indicates that the nutritional influences imposed on the teeth during development and calcification through the consumption of coarse, unrefined diets of natural foodstuffs resulted in teeth that were more decay-resistant than those teeth formed during the prewar years.”
Notice that emphasis is placed on the formation of the teeth and a good diet. Your mother’s diet during pregnancy and lactation provided the foundation of your dental health. Even if you now eat an excellent diet, your teeth may be suffering from poor eating habits of your younger years, or from your mother’s prenatal diet.
Still, a diet of chiefly raw fruits and vegetables can make your present teeth last longer. Besides diet, what else can prevent tooth decay? Exercise!

Exercise, Chew, Chomp, and Gnash!

So, how do you exercise your teeth—by flapping your gums? No, the best exercise for your teeth is to use them for the exact purpose that you have them: chewing food.
Look at the typical American meal: white bread, mashed potatoes, gravy, meatloaf, mushy peas, and a glass of tea. You don’t need teeth to eat that kind of food. You could almost swallow the slop in a few gulps with one or two chews. You need a meal you can sink your teeth into. You need to eat food that requires chewing and using your teeth.
Which foods exercise the teeth best? Raw, fibrous, wholesome fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Cooked foods are poorly chewed; raw foods must be thoroughly masticated. The chewing of the firm raw fruits and vegetables give the teeth exactly the kind of exercise they need and they may be your best Toothbrush! Consider this report made by two British researchers in the Medical Press:
Two groups of children were chosen at random. One group ate a raw apple after their regular meal the other group did not. It was found that chewing an apple stimulated the gum tissues, increased the saliva flow to cleanse the teeth, and provided optimum exercise for the jaw muscles. The researchers discovered that the children who ate apples (or any other raw, fibrous fruit or vegetable) with their meals had significantly better gum health and fewer cavities than those children who simply followed a regular program of brushing and a conventional diet.
Dr. Maury Massler, a professor of children’s dentistry at the University of Illinois stated that the best way to clean the teeth and gums is not by harsh brushing or chemical toothpastes, but by eating foods which are “natural cleaning agents for the teeth, such as pulpy, fresh, raw fruit, nuts, and vegetables.”

Here’s to Your Teeth—Drink Up!

“Studies have shown,” writes Dr. Arthur C. Guyton, “that teeth formed in children who drink water containing small amounts of fluorine develop enamel that is more resistant to caries than the enamel in children who drink water not containing fluorine.”
Can fluoridated water prevent decay? Actually, the real evidence proves otherwise. An engineer in Massachusetts has analyzed the official government figures on tooth decay and municipalities that use fluoridated water. His figures have conclusively shown that artificial fluoridation does not prevent tooth decay, but only postpones it for a few years.
Fluorine does not make the enamel of the tooth harder and more resistant to decay. Instead, the fluorine simply displaces certain chemical ions in the enamel which makes it less soluble. The fluorine which is now stored in the tooth’s enamel is said to be toxic to some of the bacteria in the mouth, which is the original rationale behind putting fluorine in our water in the first place. Bacteria causes cavities; fluorine kills bacteria; therefore, fluorine prevents tooth decay.
Remember, any substance that is capable of killing bacteria is an anti-life agent. If fluorine is poisonous to bacteria, you may be sure that it is poisonous to you as well. In many locales all over the world, the people have excellent teeth and there is not a trace of fluorine in the water supply.
Actually, fluorine in its organic and naturally occurring form as found in small amounts in some foods is a beneficial mineral for the teeth.

Building Healthy Teeth

You cannot drink a chemical and expect to have healthy teeth. Good teeth are only built through good nutrition, and this means avoiding the harmful foods as well as including the natural fruits, vegetables, and so on.
Which foods are the tooth destroyers? Refined carbohydrates, in the form of sugars, sweets, breads, pastries, cakes, and cooked foods, are the worst foods for the teeth. The white sugar and white flour in these products are nutrient-robbers, and they set the stage for cavity formation. Other poor foods are those high in phosphorus and acid-forming elements such as soft drinks (the chief source of inorganic phosphorus in the American diet) and meat.
The most important person in tooth care today is not the dentist but the mother-to-be. A pregnant woman’s diet determines the quality of teeth that her child will have throughout the early years and the entire adult life. After birth, the child should be fed only the optimum foods. If this practice is continued through adulthood, perfect dental health will be a reality.


The acidity level of the saliva

Dr. David Klein says that "The integrity of the teeth is largely determined by the overall quality of the diet and the acidity of the saliva. Diets deficient in minerals, especially the trace minerals, promote weak tooth structures. Diets high in acid-forming foods are notorious for causing tooth decay and dum inflammation. A predominantly acid-forming diet causes the saliva to be acidic at all times, dissolving tooth enamel, causing decay of the dentin and eroding the gums. Negative, distressful thoughts and emotions also create acidity. 
The answer is to eat a mineral-rich, highly alkalizing diet and cultivate mental emotional poise. This will enable the body to detoxify acid wastes, alkalize the saliva, remineralise the remaining tooth structures and regenerate the gums to some extend. As you detoxify during the first year or so, the saliva can become more acidic, depending on your acid load level. This can cause further harm to the teeth. Here are some methods you can employ to raise the pH in your mouth during the detox phase: rinse and softly brush your teeth often using water, or baking soda or a solution of sea salt water; floss dialy; avoid all acid-forming foods; avoid all acidic fruits; avoid all oxalic acid-bearing vegetables; drink one or two glasses of fresh vegetable jice with dark leafy greens every afternoon. When your salivary pH upon arising is close to 7.0 and it remains above 7.0 all day, your teeth and gums will become healthier".

By the Skin of Our Teeth

Tooth decay is the most familiar dental disease, yet it is the degeneration of the gums that is the most serious problem. Most tooth loss in this country occurs not from decayed teeth, but from poor gum health and bone loss.
Bleeding from the gums after brushing or flossing is the first sign of potential gum trouble. Healthy gums do not bleed. They should be a healthy pink, not a bright red, and they should hold the teeth firmly in place with no signs of recession.
Bleeding occurs because the gums have become irritated by a buildup of a substance called plague. What is plaque? Well, if you look closely around the base of your teeth where they join the gum line, you might find a white chalky deposit or perhaps a yellow band. That is plaque and that is what causes most dental troubles in this country.
Plaque is the acid-waste products of bacterial colonies that live in your mouth. As these bacteria eat, they excrete an acid substance which forms the chalky plaque that coats your teeth.
When this plaque is fresh (about one to two days old), it can usually be removed by simply brushing or flossing. If the plaque is left on the teeth, it becomes mineralized into a rock-hard substance called calculus.
Calculus is a hardened mineral deposit that forms at the base of the tooth and under the gum line. Eventually it can cover the entire tooth. As it hardens and creeps beneath the gum line, it becomes razor-sharp. The calculus deposits irritate, injure and eventually destroy gum tissue. It’s quite simple, usually even quite painless and sometimes quite permanent.
But why does this plaque occur in the first place? Is plaque buildup “natural?” What did man do before the invention of the toothbrush or of dental floss or of the dental hygienist?
Well, he rarely suffered from this plaque buildup because he ate foods that do not cause this condition. Only when dead foods, such as cooked foods, are eaten does this decay occur. This is why we are always told to brush after every meal. And this is good advice, especially if our mouths have been turned into cesspools of decay by junk foods, meat, white sugar and so on.

What Can You Do?

To have a healthy mouth, put healthy food into it. An optimum diet can prevent over 95% of all dental problems, and a regular cleansing program (brushing, flossing and scraping, if necessary) can just about solve the rest.
Unfortunately, many of us begin healthy practices and a good diet after dental problems have already started. It takes about 25 years or so to grow a healthy tooth. If we ate poor foods during that time period, it’s probably going to show up in our teen and gums at a later age.
So you see, even if you are now eating only the best foods and engaging in all sorts of health-promoting activity, you still might suffer from dental problems created by poor eating habits in your earlier years.
What you need to do is to correct all the old dental problems, stay on a good diet, and clean your teeth regularly and you’ll never have any pain or problems again.
If you are currently in pain, have tooth sensitivity, or have some sort of gum disease, find a good dentist who is sympathetic to your healthy lifestyle.
After you find a dentist you can trust, have the major repair work done that you need. A cavity won’t heal itself; a broken tooth won’t grow back—you just have to have these things repaired as best as possible and then make sure it never happens again. Also, insist on quality materials and quality workmanship from your dentist. Poorly and cheaply done dental work can cause more harm than the conditions they attempt to correct. One dentist said that most of his work comes from “fixing up” other dentists’ mistakes and shortcut attempts. Don’t compromise or “economize” when you’re having permanent corrective work done; after all, you want it to last a lifetime.
If you have these cavities filled, and you probably should, insist that your dentist does not use silver amalgam fillings. This is the most common type of filing (usually called “silver” filling). Actually, it should be called a “mercury filling” because it is 45% pure mercury which is a potent poison. The saliva in your mouth will interact with silver amalgam fillings and dissolve them so that the mercury enters your bloodstream. Even the FDA recognizes the dangers of “silver” fillings, and had they been developed recently, they probably would never have had a chance for approval.
You might be able to use a quartz or porcelain filling for cavities in the front teeth or for small areas. Porcelain used to chip easily on large surfaces, but recently has been improved and is worth investigating as a substitute for the common silver filling.
After you get your teeth back in shape, stay on a good diet and practice regular dental hygiene. Once these old dental problems are corrected and you eat only wholesome foods, you’ll never be bothered by tooth decay, gum disease, or mouth sensitivity again.
After all, good health should be something you can really sink your teeth into!

What toothpaste should you use?

Cleaning the teeth, like cleaning the body, is a mechanical not a chemical process. In other words, your primary concern in cleaning and brushing the teeth is to physically remove the plaque—not to apply some chemical to them than may be included in the toothpaste. In fact, toothpaste is not even necessary. A water-moistened brush is sufficient.
Many commercial toothpastes contain sugar (!), fluoride (harmful) and various abrasives. In fact, those glamour toothpastes that promise “whiter white” do their work with harsh abrasive compounds that may actually strip the enamel off the teeth. You’ll wonder where the yellow went, and you’ll also wonder where your teeth went after a few years of scraping them down.
In general, don’t use any toothpaste you wouldn’t feel comfortable eating because that’s actually what you are doing when you put it in your mouth.
One trick for whitening the teeth, is to brush your teeth with strawberries! Rubbing strawberries over the teeth and gums helps remove plaque and yellowing, and then you can eat the strawberries afterwards. Now that’s a “toothpaste” I can heartily recommend!
Regardless if you use toothpaste or not, a gentle brushing of the teeth and gums is just good hygiene—just like removing the dirt and grime that collects on the skin of the body. Of course, if you eat a predominantly raw diet, less “dirt”‘ will collect around the teeth anyway.

Source: T.C. Fry on Life Science: "Healthy Eyes And Teeth" 

Gemma’s comments

In Europe we don’t use to have the problem of fluoridated water, but there is fluoridated salt in most inland countries, and fluoridated toothpaste.