What You Can and Can’t Eat With Braces

Do you know what you can and can’t eat with braces? While having braces makes the consumption of certain foods difficult, having braces doesn’t mean that you will be living on pureed, bland foods throughout the course of your treatment.

Knowing what foods you can and can’t eat with your braces will help you achieve the optimum results after your orthodontic treatment has been completed.

• Fruits: Choose soft fruits and cut hard fruits such as apples into pieces that are more easily chewed
• Vegetables: Avoid hard, raw vegetables such as raw carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli. But you need to enjoy a variety of vegetables for a healthy diet, so choose softer raw vegetables such as leafy greens and cook or steam vegetables for a softer texture.
• Grains: These are often cooked or baked, but sometimes whole grains can get caught in your braces. Hard rolls can also be a problem with braces. Cut them into pieces for easier chewing.
• Dairy: You won’t have problems with most dairy products, although some types of cheese can get caught under your braces.
• Meat: Eating meat from the bone and stringy cuts of meat are problems for getting caught in your braces or even damaging your braces. Remove meat from the bone, cut it into smaller bites, and choose tender cuts.
• Nuts and Seeds: These can get caught in your braces and bend wires. You may want to choose nut butters and ground seeds instead.
• Candy: You should avoid both sticky and hard candy when you wear braces.