Well-being

Go coconut with your dental care

Love coconut oil? How about coconut mouth rinse, also known as oil pulling?

Oil pulling involves swishing oil around the mouth, just like a mouthwash and it has been used in Ayurveda for thousands of years.

Lauric acid present in coconut oil has anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and anti-fungal properties. Thanks to these properties coconut oil pulling can be beneficial for reducing bad bacteria in the mouth.

Oral bacteria can create a layer on your teeth known as plaque. Having a little bit of plaque is completely normal, but too much of it could cause various problems, such as gum inflammation, unpleasant breath, and gut issues such as dysbiosis.

Bad oral bacteria can travel with food to the digestive tract and while many of them get killed by the stomach acid, some are acid-resistant. The more resistant bacteria can result in gut microbiome imbalance and this is one of the reasons why dentists suggest to brush teeth before eating breakfast.

So how do you do the oil pulling?

To achieve the best result do it on an empty stomach and prior to brushing your teeth

Take a tea spoon of coconut oil
Wait a few seconds before it melts in your mouth
Swish the oil around your mouth for about 10-15 minutes
Spit out the oil and then brush your teeth as usual

If you do oil pulling regularly it’s important to note 3 things:

To protect your bathroom pipes from oil fat accumulation, it’s best to spit the oil in a piece of paper and put it in the bin

Now and then switch to a different oil - e.g. unrefined sesame oil or sea buckthorn oil. This is to avoid oral bacteria building resistance to any of the oils