this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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Why do our teeth grow in less perfectly now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_jaw_shrinkage
so too much damn baby food?
more like eating more processed food. and I mean like 'gone through a cooking process' kind of way. We do a lot more now than just burn our meat and eat veggies raw to get nutrients. we simply just don't need to work our jaws so hard to get what we need
if only my wisdom teeth got the memo :+:
Oh mine got the memo. They lay peacefully, horizontally in my jaw, like little Saddam Husseins until they decided they wanted to visit other parts of my jaw and make friends along the way.
I recall also reading about people in Australia and some other places with diets consisting of harder food for developing babies/toodlers having better jaw/teeth ratios and straighter teeth despite no regular access to a dentist, which kind of corroborates the findings.
Should we be giving our toddlers bones to chew on?
For real though, what about people who have gaps in their teeth? Did they have too much hard food?
because people with very bad teeth survive nowadays
Well, that mf didn't survive either... He's dead....
But he lived a long and happy life. He died at the ripe old age of 35
Average age is not average for those that reached adulthood. Most adults still lived to decent ages unless you select for very dire situations, like the Black Plague, or specific outbreaks of violence, etc.
That is true, but tooth get worse when you grow older. So to die younger means you'll leave a nicer skull for archaeologists to find. The number 35 was arbitrarily chosen, but I now think your fact was slumbering in my mind when I chose that number.
But... teeth don't change arrangement as you age. Straight teeth are straight teeth unless rare complications happen like you have a lot of wisdom teeth and they shove the other teeth out of alignment.
Our food is way softer so we don't chew enough to maximise the growth of our maxillae and jaws.
So... You're saying I should eat more bones and chew on trees.
Nuts and bones. Tree bark of the yew tree when you inevitably get indigestion.
Yew wood, wouldn't you?
I eat the joints of bones - further up they tend to splinter and taste more chalky, but the joints are delicious and satisfying once you get past the ick factor. I thought even the cartilage was gross as a kid, but at some point instincts kicked in and my body told me it was a great idea. I knew marrow was nutritious and some people ate it, but I still don't find it that appealing - joint bones are one of the most satisfying things ever though, I highly recommend gnawing on the end of a chicken wing
Just because of your comment, I grabbed some tree bark to try... Cinnamon sticks. And holy shit, I just wanted to try it out, but I couldn't stop. It just splinters at first, but once you start grinding the flavor kicks in and it just melts - 10/10, it'd be easy to eat enough to make yourself sick, but I'm going to be trying this again
And FWIW, I've never had a cavity. I brush my teeth every morning but otherwise only if I feel I need to. I slightly cracked a tooth once, but my dentist was great and told me to use fluoride toothpaste and hold off on a crown - it's been a decade and it hasn't bothered me in years
Trust your body. Yes, gnaw on bones and tree bark - not all of it, your body knows what is edible and what isn't. If your instincts say "gnaw on this", and it's not made of plastic or metal, give it a try... If you take it slowly, what's the worst that can happen? Probably a tummy ache
We eat soft, processed foods now. We used to graze and chew constantly, which helps the jaw grow properly.
I think I’d read before that it was because most of our foods now are soft foods so our teeth/jaws are not as strong.
Sugar content of our food is one of the reasons I read before as well.
Everyone who's replied to you so far are wrong and speculating. The real issue is actually lack of nutrition and exercise for the mouth. We're not growing our jaws out quite right while our teeth are coming in.
this also sounds like speculation.
I'll admit I don't have a citation. I just remember it from a video about how this African dude had magnificent teeth because of the environment he grew up in.
Edit: Oh nice, you found a wiki page which validates my thing!
im p sure it has to do with stuff being easier to eat. we dont have to work with our jaw to tear or crush difficult foods since everything is processed or we have tools to make it easy. our jaws are underused, so they develop to be smaller than theyre supposed to be, and our teeth get crowded
Before we cut our food in perfectly sized bites with utensils our ancestors used to do it by biting into large pieces of food with their front teeth. That would wear them down evenly to form a nice flat bite.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's the skeleton of someone who died way younger than we think as well.
Something else that affects our teeth (though I'm not sure if it affects growth) is sugar consumption. Our ancestors had very little access to sugar or even spices. They ate things like meat and veggies plain. Back in prehistoric times, this meant they wouldn't have to brush their teeth, since the bacteria in their mouths wouldn't have produced plaque.
That's why a lot of human remains of 80-year-olds from 20,000 BC have perfect teeth or only a few missing after those teeth got knocked out by getting hit in the face. If you're ever stranded on a deserted island, you should avoid eating all those coconuts and bananas with every meal.
We eat shitty food