Fruits are a great source of vitamins and minerals as well as tasty, sweet snacks. Now you’ve got your new braces there are a few foods you need to avoid. We’ve compiled the best fruits to eat with braces to make your life easier.
What Fruits Can You Eat With Braces?
There are plenty of great fruits that you can eat with braces – but there are definitely some that are better than others. Most fruits can be eaten with braces but just need you to do two things: –
- Cut larger and harder fruits up into smaller bites to eat at the back of your teeth.
- Brush your teeth 30 minutes after eating fruit because of the sugar.
We’ve broken up our list into tiers as follow: Best, OK, Avoid
Best Fruits To Eat With Braces
This list features small, bite-sized fruits that are easy to pop into the back of your mouth.
- Grapes
- Blueberries
- Raspberries, Blackberries, Gooseberries
- Strawberries – Try them chopped up for less chewing if your mouth is sore after an orthodontist appointment
- Pitted Cherries – Without the stone, cherries made good braces food. Avoid maraschino cherries used in cocktails or on cakes
- Chopped Banana – Chopped up, fairly ripe and soft banana pieces are easy to chew at the back of the mouth with braces
- Watermelon Chunks – Cantaloupe and other melons are also good in chunks
- Avocado – Yes it’s a fruit and yes it’s great for eating with braces. It’s soft and easy to mush up or have in smaller slices or chunks for easy chewing
- Lychee – Remove the seed first
- Dragon Fruit, Kiwi, Passionfruit, Pomegranate – Make sure you clean the bits out properly after eating!
OK Fruits To Eat With Braces
- Apple Chunks – Apples cut into the smallest chunks are OK to eat with braces but nothing bigger. Never bite into an apple with braces and watch out for very hard apple chunks.
- Harder Fruits In Chunks – Peaches, pears, plums, and apricots
- Cucumber Slices & Chunks
- Lemon & Lime Slices In Drinks – A slice of these in a drink isn’t much to worry about if you brush 30 minutes after – Whole chunks are a different story, see below…
Fruits To Avoid Eating With Braces
In general, these are fruits you shouldn’t eat while going through braces treatment. We all slip up every so often so once in a while isn’t a dealbreaker but do your best!
- Whole Apples + Pears – Big bites with your front teeth are a big nono
- Whole Peaches + Apricots
- Acidic Fruit – Lemons, Limes & Oranges – These are all acidic. Acid is bad for teeth and causes tooth decay. Removing acid from teeth is hard even with brushes, and with braces it becomes even harder. Try to completely avoid whole slices
- Pineapples – These are also acidic before digested, so pineapple juice in your mouth
- Figs + Dates – Generally dried, they are very chewy and “bitty”, getting stuck in gaps easily. In general you should avoid all dried fruits with braces
- Coconut – Coconut chunks are hard and very “bitty”. You don’t want to snap a bit off in your teeth and take a bracket with it. Coconut water is mostly OK for braces, like other fruit juices – see below.
- Mangos – The fibres of mangos get stuck in braces so easily that it becomes a real mess to get them out. You can eat them but really it’s not worth the effort. The same goes for dried mangos with braces.
Other Fruits That Are OK With Braces
If the fruit is soft and bite-size, can be chopped into small chunks, and isn’t acidic – it’s OK to eat with braces. Try and use your common sense and the list we’ve given to compare if that new, exotic fruit you found is OK to eat with braces.
Is Fruit A Healthy Snack For Braces?
In general, a handful of pieces of fruit a week make up part of a good, balanced diet. While too much sugar is a bad thing, whole fruit is much healthier than packaged snacks and sweets, and still better than fruit juice.
Fruit contains a number of different vitamins and minerals as well as fiber – which is good for gut health.
Can You Drink Fruit Smoothies With Braces?
Smoothies are generally OK to have with braces but not too often. Pure fruit smoothies are almost completely sugar and we know to avoid sugary foods with braces. However, a fruit and veg smoothie with milk is a great early braces food when it’s hard to chew at all.
Smoothies Braces Tip #1
Get a reusable straw that you can carry around with you. I personally use bamboo straws that are compostable and don’t add more plastic to the environment. Sip to the back of your mouth so the juice doesn’t sit on your teeth and braces as long.
Smoothies Braces Tip #2
Rinse your mouth with water after finishing your smoothie to remove as much fruit fiber and sugar from your mouth as possible. Then as usual you should always brush your teeth 30 minutes after eating or drinking.
Can You Drink Fruit Juice With Braces?
Yes, you can drink fruit juice with braces but you should try not to. Fruit juice is basically just a sugar drink that doesn’t contain the fiber content of fruit pieces. Without the fiber, you’ll feel less full and won’t get the gut benefits.
Additionally, fruit juice is often made from concentrate which usually means concentrated juice, with added sugar and water. It ends up being more like a sugary soft drink than a healthy snack. If you do drink fruit juice while wearing braces then follow our smoothie tips above and use a straw to sip to the back of your mouth, then rinse with water once finished, with a full brush 30 minutes after.
Can You Eat Welch’s Fruit Snacks With Braces?
Yes, but you shouldn’t. Firstly, Welch’s Fruit Snacks are just candy or sweets. They advertise that they are made with real fruit and market themselves as somehow healthy with their packaging and claims – but they’re nowhere near as healthy as fruit.
Mostly these are sweets made from concentrated fruit juice, with added sugar, and food colorings. There’s none of the fiber, protein, or natural vitamins of actual fruit. They’re also gummy and chewy which are bad for braces because they get stuck in the crevices of your teeth. Generally avoid.
Read more – Can You Eat Grapes With Braces?
Can You Eat Dried Fruit With Braces?
Dried fruits should be avoided with braces. Dried fruits are generally amazing tasty snacks but when dried become very chewy and sticky, meaning it’s very easy to get bits lodged in your teeth and harder to remove. Even worse: sticky and gummy foods can end up bending or breaking wires and occasionally leads to broken brackets.
Avoid dried figs, dried plums, dried mangos, dried apricots, dates, and even the harmless-looking dried raisins!
