{"id":9327,"date":"2012-08-21T02:51:43","date_gmt":"2012-08-21T09:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145696.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=9327"},"modified":"2012-08-21T02:51:43","modified_gmt":"2012-08-21T09:51:43","slug":"sustainable-smile-with-natural-dental-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/articles\/sustainable-smile-with-natural-dental-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustainable Smile with Natural Dental Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>by Green Diva Lisa<\/em><\/p>\n

We all know that taking care of our teeth is very important, and the value of natural dental care is becoming clearer. What makes a health and sustainable smile? Let’s consider tooth brushes, their impact on our environment, and our\u00a0toothpaste.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Toothbrush:\u00a0<\/strong>Did you know that in the US every year some\u00a0450 million plastic toothbrushes make their way to landfills?<\/em>. Most of those toothbrushes will not biodegrade in our’s, or our children’s, children’s lifetime. \u00a0Because of that, I was eager to try a new toothbrush from\u00a0World Centric<\/a>\u00a0which is made from a plant based resin called\u00a0Ingeo<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0and NOT petroleum. And it is certified compostable by the\u00a0Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI)<\/a>. Not only is it gentler on the planet as a waste product, but\u00a0Ingeo<\/a>\u00a0uses less energy to produce these toothbrushes \u00a0than it’s petroleum based plastic\u00a0counterpart. Because of how landfills work it won’t properly biodegrade in the landfill, so if you don’t have access to commercial composting facility in your area,\u00a0World Centric<\/a>\u00a0will even provide a prepaid envelope to return your toothbrush and case and they’ll do it for you. How’s that for easy? They haven’t perfected biodegradable bristles, but their working on it. In the meantime, they’ve designed the brush so it can be easily broken off at the bristle bit so it can be disposed of separately. You can find the toothbrush in many health food stores and\u00a0Whole Foods Markets<\/a>\u00a0or find it online at:\u00a0www.worldcentric.org<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve been using one now for the last month. It does a fine job of cleaning up my teeth and I like the shape. \u00a0Have you looked in the toothbrush isle in the grocery or pharmacy lately? Yikes! It seems like they want you to compete to have the biggest and the brightest toothbrush. How are some of those colors made? The\u00a0World Centric toothbrush<\/a>\u00a0has a wide enough handle for good control but not so heavy that you feel compelled to skip the gym.<\/p>\n

World Centric<\/a>\u00a0is committed to developing sustainable alternatives to plastics and\u00a0Styrofoam\u00a0by making products made from annually renewable plants including sugarcane and wheat fiber, which are by-products of the agricultural industry. And here’s the best part, they donate a full 25% of the company profits to grassroots social and environmental organizations. Pretty dang cool, if you ask me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Toothpaste:\u00a0<\/strong>Is your toothpaste\u00a0destructive\u00a0to your tooth structure? You might be surprised. On my last visit to my dentist,\u00a0Dr. Scaff,<\/a>\u00a0I asked about the space that seems to be growing between my teeth and my gums. Can you say “long in the tooth?” He told me about a recent study that illustrates how most of the toothpastes people have been using is causing the problem. Even some of the “natural” choices in toothpaste are too abrasive for our teeth and are wearing away the\u00a0enamel\u00a0and dentin. I was quite surprised when I saw the list. Basically he said, try some on your finger, if it feels abrasive, it is abrasive. Stop using abrasive toothpaste. Oh and have you seen the volume of toothpaste choices in the grocery or pharmacy? Double Yikes!!<\/p>\n

To see the index of Abrasivity of common toothpastes, please go to Green Diva Lisa’s original post on\u00a0TheGreenDivas.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

image of happy tooth via\u00a0shutterstock
\n<\/a><\/em>image of toothpaste via\u00a0shutterstock<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all know that taking care of our teeth is very important, and the value of natural dental care is becoming clearer. What makes a health and sustainable smile? Let’s consider tooth brushes, their impact on our environment, and our toothpaste. More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":9328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[15,11,84,5505],"tags":[6667,6668,6669,4250],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/happy_tooth.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}