Stewed and Roasted Vegetables Can Harm Our Teeth

The Naked Chief Jamie Oliver made the people throughout the world like vegetable stews and oven roasted vegetables. If cooked with love, such meals are very tasty and, in addition, they are considered to be very healthy and useful for our body. In particular, stewed and oven-roasted vegetables are beneficial for our digestive system. However, according to a research carried out two years ago by a group of specialists at the University of Dundee, Scotland, eating a lot of stewed and oven roasted vegetables can be harmful to our teeth and stimulate tooth decay.
The researchers were analyzing chemical content of stewed vegetables cooked in oven for 45 minutes and in a traditional way (boiled in a pot on the top of the stove). They discovered that stewed squash, eggplant and green belly pepper have increased acidity, which can be compared to the acidity level in sodas, the most powerful destroyers of human teeth. Red peppers should be also associated with increased acidity and negative effects on our teeth enamel. At the same time, such vegetables as tomatoes and onions do not have high acidity levels whatever way of cooking is chosen.
“The acidity of ratatouille prepared by oven roasting is the same as that of some carbonated drinks that, when consumed in excess, are believed to contribute to the development of dental erosion,” Dr Graham Chadwick of the School of Dentistry, one of the leaders of the research, comments. The results of this interesting study were published in 2006 in European Journal of Prosthodontics and Restorative Dentistry. Acid erosion is one of the most common and dangerous dental conditions which affects modern people of all ages.