TIL Why Brushing Your Teeth Makes Orange Juice Taste So Bad

in #til7 years ago (edited)


Ever drink orange juice shortly after brushing your teeth? Tasted nasty, right? I remember doing so once when I was young and never again. Do to that experience I will wait at least 15 minutes or so before drinking any juices. But I never knew just why the flavor changed from delicious to death.

Well, it comes down to a chemical that is added to nearly every major toothpaste brand, sodium lauryl sulfate – SLS (or sometimes sodium lauryl ether sulfate SLES). This addition makes the toothpaste foam up and spread around in your mouth when you start brushing. SLS is what is called a ‘surfactant’ and is added to many cleaning products such as soaps, shampoos, and detergents – basically anything that suds up when you use it.

The thing is SLS plays around with our taste buds in two ways. It blocks our sweet receptors, decreasing our taste of sweet things, and breaks down part of our phospholipids. Phospholipids reduce our ability to taste sour and bitter. Together this creates a one-two punch to our tongue, dampening our ability to taste sweet and enhancing the bitter.

This causes orange juice, which is normally sweet, to become unpleasant. I would definitely recommend not drinking grapefruit juice or cranberry juice directly after brushing your teeth. Or go ahead and do it, toughguy!


The good thing is after a short while our saliva dilutes and washes away the SLS and our tongue returns to normal. You can speed this process up by rinsing your mouth well with warm water.

Bonus Facts:

SLS is listed as an irritant. If you get mouth ulcers you may want to try an SLS-free toothpaste to reduce the amount or frequency.

Don’t brush your teeth for 30 minutes after drinking or eating anything acidic (like many juices). Acidic foods can weaken your enamel and brushing in that weakened state can result in removing some of it.


Sources:

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Always i know there is something wrong after brushing my teeth.
wow it was SLS.
just for fun man.
really your topic is scientific informative, thanks and following for such interesting.

Thanks! I've always tried to make useful and/or interesting posts here.

You're the best rio! :D

Scary stuff, bro. But your post offers life saving advice!

Life-saving?! I dunno 'bout that :D

Good to know. Time for an orange/toothpaste ice cream session now ^^

Now, I know why I avoid orange juice at the hotel breakfast buffet.
Or, should I not brush my teeth and go for breakfast? :-)

If you give, say 15 minutes, after brushing your teeth (and rinsing well!) I think you will be fine. At least that works well for me.

Actually, I do have the orange juice at the later time of the breakfast which this post kind of explains why I avoid taking it first but after eating something and coffee.

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