Healing tooth decay- are potatoes cariogenic?

[organicmidwestmama]

/p>I read the book cure tooth decay and while I don't follow the books advice I am curious about some things I read

potatoes and dental health, are they a good and safe sub for grains in regards to being cariogenic or not?

nuts: is there any way they can be a helpful part of our diets if we're trying to have better dental health and prevent cavities? 

i personally don't follow the advice of the book but adjust curious about these two foods and dental health.

Edited by organicmidwestmama - 1/12/11 at 5:57am

[Koalamom]

Well the link posted a dfew threads down by tanyalynn talks about sucess in childrens cavities being cured and they did eat alot of potatoes.

[organicmidwestmama]

Yeah, I know dr mellanby did rx a diet high in potatos but low in cereal grains, just curious if there is anything written about that..
Edited by organicmidwestmama - 1/12/11 at 5:51am

[Koalamom]

Yeah I have no idea about the changes and I don't really believe a word the author says as he is a joke. Unless he has research to back him up... I dont want to get into any more here or it will probably be removed.

[tanyalynn]

What's the argument against nuts?  Is it just the phytic acid issue?  I'd soak them in salt water to reduce the phytic acid, but other than that, they're pretty mineral-dense. 

wholehealthsource.blogspot.com has some discussion of potatoes, he links back to original studies quite well.  Now, mostly the potato discussions weren't about cavities per se, but about general health, but to the extent that there's overlap, it would be applicable.  And if someone is intolerant of potatoes, or they've just got blood sugar issues that mean that carbs need to be limited overall, then potatoes would cause trouble, but that's really for any food that falls into those categories. 

[organicmidwestmama]

According to the "living with phytic acid" article on the wapf site, nuts have as much or MORE of this then grains, which if that's true is a major drag, lol. As far as white potatoes go, they apparently have some phytic acid and also oxalic acid but I am not giving up potatoes!

[deditus]

Yes, but you wouldn't eat as large a quantity of nuts as you would grains. And if you used, say blanched almond flour for baking, the skin is removed from the nut and that is where most of the phytic acid is.

[Koalamom]

What if you were eating a nut butter? Would it be better to get roasted or raw?

[organicmidwestmama]

From that article and other info ive read, raw would be much higher in phytates, roasting does reduce them somewhat. The referenced article states 1 almond flour muffin would have 100 grams phytic acid on average, and that those suffering from tooth decay should aim for less then 150 g a day.