How to avoid bad breath - 10 tips!

Bad breath - Everybody has faced this situation once or more often in their life, some even have chronically bad breath ( Halitosis ).

Here are 10 tips to avoid bad breath:

1. Up to 90 % of bad breath is caused by a "dirty" mouth. Dirty means your mouth still contains food between the teeth and bacterias are happily growing in your gum. Cleaning your teeth at least twice a day should help reduce the bacterias who are one cause of bad breath.
   
   
2. Cleaning your tongue is essential, too, as it will further reduce the bacterias in your mouth. It's best to clean the tongue after you brushed your teeth.
   
   
3. Drink enough water as a dry mouth can quickly turn your fresh breath into bad breath. It's a fact that saliva (spit) has a natural antibacterial effect and can wash away small food particles, too. The bad morning breath is caused by a reduced flow of saliva during the night/sleeping time.
   
   
4. If you have no toothbrush/toothpaste around, rinse your mouth with plain water to remove some of the stuck food particles after a meal. It can already prevent that bad breath bacterias can settle in your mouth.
   
   
5. There are some natural remedies who don't cure bad breath but can cover the smell of it. Try to munch some parsley or spearmint.
   
   
6. If you want to get a fresh breath start to eat apples, carrots, peanuts, celery or some low-fat cheese. They help to fight the plaque bacterias and might help you in the fight against bad breath, too!
   
   
7. Eating a serving of yogurt daily reduces the amount of odor-causing hydrogen sulfide and even better it further reduces plaque and gum diseases. Try to get natural yogurts with active cultures (avoid the sugar-loaded ones).
   
   
8. In case you don't have some spare parsley, give a chewing gum (sugarless) a try. It will mask the odor for a certain time frame and increase your salvia (Nr. 3).
   
   
9. Coffee creates a thin coat on your tongue which supports the growing of bad breath sulfide in your mouth. A better choice would be to drink tea as some research show that it can help to reduce bad breath.
   
   
10. Say NO to commercial mouthwashes as they contain Alcohol which will further dry out your mouth. Additional they fill it up with flavor and coloring so that the different brands look & taste indeed different ;) In the long run you might even end up with chronic bad breath.