Natural Toothpaste

[Pandabean]

What plants (or mixture you can make) in the wild can be used as a toothpaste or tooth cleaner or even as a breath freshener?

[mrcharly]

I like rosemary for a breath freshener.

[Tadpole]

Liquorice root, both brush and toothpaste. Not sure if you can grow it in the country though

[Pandabean]

What about the mint family such as spearmint and ordinary mint? Would they just act as a freshener rather than a cleaner?

[mountainm]

Powdered charcoal has been used for donkeys to clean teeth with believe it or not. Not very palatable though.

[Frogo]

Strawberry root

[ged]

Toothpaste is basically just a mixture of liquid soap and chalk. The chalk is mildly abrasive and so helps remove deposits from the teeth. Toothpaste and a toothbrush have a high priority on my list(s) of kit to take when I go camping, and they're so light I can't see myself needing an alternative. Flavourings like mint and whatnot are sales gimmicks, they do nothing for the cleaning action but may make the paste more palatable and give you that, er, ring of confidence.

[Toddy]

Sage and salt, thyme and salt, and a chewed wee hazel or willow twig. Bog myrtle works, leaves your mouth feeling kind of resiny though. Seaweeds chewed are good; piptoporus betullina (it's like polystyrene but it'll scrub against your teeth and clean them, just make sure to spit out lots of the saliva), cut a wee bunch of field rushes, and strip one to make a binding. That gives you a wee round ended bunch that cleans really well. Meadowsweet root if you have sores or toothache.

I'm with Ged though, one of the tiny travel brushes and tiny refillable tube weighs nothing.

cheers,
Toddy

[Pandabean]

I wasn't looking for info for a replacement to the toothbrush and toothpaste. I was just wanting to see what was around us that could be used if needed.
Mainly the other day I was thinking what could you do to keep clean if you had to use natural plants and toothpaste was one of them that came to mind.
I would have thought it would have to have some anti-bacterial property as well

I remember seeing Uncle Ray or some other show, showing you a quick way to clean your teeth with a plant. I may be wrong and dreamt it all up though.

[Runestone]

I've heard it said that chewing pine resin like chewing gum is what the mountain men used to freshen their bresh.

Dont fancy it myself really, Most of what Ive collected seem powdery rather than gum-like. Maybe when purified its a better texture.

Chris

[Toddy]

I agree that it's interesting Andy
Most of those I quoted are anti bacterial too.

cheers,
M

[DaveWL]

I understand that if you take a willow twig and pound the end inch or so between a couple of rocks you can effectively make a very fine "brush" end on it that's ideal to use as a toothbrush without any paste. The tannins (....?) in the wood act to help clean your teeth and kill off any nasties. Not sure on breath freshening and never actually done this myself ....

[Gagnrad]

What plants (or mixture you can make) in the wild can be used as a toothpaste or tooth cleaner or even as a breath freshener?

There are twigs you can use, as people have said. But a paste—that's a tough one. I'm sure there'd be a good answer but there's nothing I can recall off the cuff.

The Ancient Egyptians used natron (both for cleaning their teeth and for freshening their mouths):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natron

You could use baking soda—or common salt (sodium chloride). Salt's certainly obtainable in the wild, particularly if you're near the coast. Anywhere in England that has -wich in the town name is going to be a place where salt was made in the past.

One response to the question would be to challenge it's premises. Why are these things necessary? If we were living in a wild state, they almost certainly wouldn't be. Nature doesn't blunder, and human beings are, in fact, very finely tuned to their environment. Teeth do their job with no problems and don't rot, if you don't eat crap, as civilized people do. What animal ever used toothpaste?

Everything we're told about dental health gets turned on its head once we begin to look at tooth samples from people living a "wild" existence:

Meantime there appeared a statement from Dr. Adelbert Fernald, Curator of the Museum of Dental School, Harvard University, that he had been collecting mouth casts of living Americans, from the most northerly Eskimos south to the Yucatan. The best teeth and the healthiest mouths were found among people who never drank milk since they had ceased to be suckling babes and who never in their lives tasted any of the other things recommended for sound teeth by the New York Commissioner of Health. These people, Eskimos, never use tooth paste, tooth powder, tooth brushes, mouth wash, or gargle. They never take any pains to cleanse their teeth or mouths. They do not visit their dentist twice a year or even once in a lifetime.

Australian Aborigines, when eating their traditional foods, also had virtually zero dental decay. The same goes for North American Indians. One name the Indians had for whites, besides "palefaces", was "blackteeth". They believed bizarrely that white people's teeth rotted because of the lies that passed over them! (Or perhaps not so bizarrely when you read about all the broken treaties.)

Anyway, i's refined carbohydrates that do it—sugar and white flour principally. There are competing theories about why that is. The popular one is that some of the sugars from these foods stay on the teeth and feed bacteria. The less well-known, but in truth more plausible, one is that these nutrient-denuded foods supply insufficient minerals and vitamins so you must draw on your body's reserves of minerals and these literally get pulled from the teeth. The body protects internal organs and draws first on the teeth and bones

Rami Nagel, among others, has written about it:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cure-Tooth-D...dp/B004GB0JIM/

Short review of his book here:

http://nourishedmagazine.com.au/blog...-root-canals-2

So a kind of answer to the question is that people who ate wild foods didn't really need toothpaste. A rinse with water and perhaps a going over with a suitable twig would be adequate.

[Bushwhacker]

When I worked in Saudi I saw many folks using a miswaak - basically a twig with the end chewed to create a brush.

[Pandabean]

Thanks Gagnrad, that is pretty interesting.
So essentially natraon is basicaly bicarb of soda and salt. I heard that salt is antibacterial so how does that work with sage (Mary mentione it earlier)? Is sage just for flavour and would you crush/mix with the salt to form a sort of paste which can act as toothpaste? if it is for flavour, can that also apply to the mints?

I wonder, (maybe one for Mary) if we see this in our own UK ancestors from the prehistoric times in archaeological digs. Often I have seen programs like time team or photos from dig sites in my courses/reading and from what I can see the teeth look in reasonable shape. Would this be real or an affect of the teeth being buried for so long.

[Toddy]

Basically from the advent of farming onwards teeth are rotten.

It's a mixture of carbohydrates from grain, it's sticky stuff, and the stone powder that gets added to the flour from the quern used to grind the grain.

The cure is to lightly crush the grain and then brew it into beer The mash is edible, the beer is drinkable (and contains no bacteria or pathogens unlike the water) but folks go through life half sloshed

However, without farming we can't support our population and without the arable crops storage ability Winter can be damned hungry.
Humanity thrives because of farming......and good dentistry is a very good thing

cheers,
M

[Davey569]

An alder branch is a great toothbrush. Just chew it up to break the fibres into a brush.

BG did this in a show, it might be the one your thinking of? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Bg7CRUGufk

[John Fenna]

I have in the past used a chewed twig with salt for cleaning my pegs - I tried charcoal powder but the taste was like the black Spillers dog biscuits...not too good!
Chewing mint is a good freshener, as is parsley.
There is no substitute for Sensodyne that I know of though ...unless - perhaps - you use a willow twig and let the asprin effect reduce the pain of sensitive teeth!

[Toddy]

Another kid who munched the dog's biscuits


cheers,
Toddy

[Marttiini Girl]

was it wild strawberry root, or maybe I also dreamt it too

[mountainm]

was it wild strawberry root, or maybe I also dreamt it too

I seem to recall strawberry root was used for teeth whitening (dunno if it works) so not necessarily cleaning. But haven't got Culpeper with me to confirm

[Bearded Bugs]

Sorry to resurrect the old thread guys, I've been looking for toothpaste info.

Powdered charcoal has been used for donkeys to clean teeth with believe it or not. Not very palatable though.

Do you use the ash from the fire as well as the broken up charcoal?

[Harvestman]

Isn't there mention of cuttlebone as toothpaste on another thread here? The "I live by scrounging off others and I'm ok, Jack" thread? I may have mis-remembered the thread title slightly.

[lannyman8]

i would use wood as with some fresh smelling herd crushed into a paste, and just for good measure bung some salt crystals in too.....

[Harvestman]

A fresh smelling herd, eh? Crushed to a paste? That's a lot of paste...

[lannyman8]

A fresh smelling herd, eh? Crushed to a paste? That's a lot of paste...

over a year then yes, but you would only need 3 0r 4 mint leaves a day....

the silica in the ash does all the work after all...

[lou1661]

Leadwood ash and a brush made from Magic Guarri, anything else is excessive.