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How Drinking Acidic Drinks Hurts Your Teeth

Tooth enamel is the hardest substance in your body, even harder than your bones. But as hard as it is, it can only withstand so much – and acid eats right through it.

Unfortunately, so many of the drinks we consume on a daily basis hurt our tooth enamel. This is because they’re highly acidic. And acid destroys tooth enamel over time, weakening your teeth and opening the door for cavities and other things we want to avoid.

To keep your teeth healthy, it’s recommended that you limit how much of these acidic drinks you consume on a regular basis.

But how acidic are they?

Checking the pH Scale for Common Drinks

If we check the pH scale that measures acidity in substances, we can figure out just how acidic a drink is.

We’ll start at the bottom, with battery acid. Battery acid is highly acidic. It can dissolve several common substances easily. Its rating on the pH scale is 1.00. By comparison, water is rated at the halfway point, at 7.00.

Here are a few popular drinks and their pH values:

  • Lemon juice – 2.00
  • Coca-Cola – 2.50
  • Diet soda – 2.70
  • Powerade Red – 2.77
  • 5-Hour Energy – 2.81
  • Gatorade Blue – 2.92
  • Gatorade Rain – 3.08
  • Red Bull – 3.37

By comparison, coffee is 5.00 and milk is 6.00.

Each full number on the pH scale represents 10 times more acidity. So, a substance that is at 2.00 is ten times as acidic as something that is 3.00. Lemon juice is 100,000 more times acidic than water.

As you can see, these popular drinks are closer to battery acid than water. The most destructive acid for tooth enamel is citric acid, and that is found in many non-cola drinks.

Protecting Your Teeth

You can protect your teeth by regularly brushing and limiting how much of these acidic beverages you drink on a regular basis.

How much is too much? Ideally, you shouldn’t drink acidic drinks at all. There are drinks that are much healthier for you that don’t do nearly as much damage to your teeth. Cutting acidic drinks out of your diet altogether is highly recommended, not just for your teeth but for your overall health.

If you have to drink a soft drink, try root beer. The pH value for root beer is around 4.00. It doesn’t contain critic or phosphoric acids and is usually not carbonated.

If you have any questions about protecting your teeth from acidic drinks, contact us. We’ll be glad to help you with tips on keeping your teeth beautiful and whole.