Orthodontists, like those from Care Dental, rightly advise you to avoid hard and sticky foods such as candy treats and nuts. Not only can they compromise your treatment by damaging wires and brackets, but these kinds of foods tend to leave your braces in a sticky mess that takes time to clean. Almonds, which are currently the most popular nut in the world, are also one of the hardest nuts. This makes them a threat to your braces.
Despite that fact, if you have recently gotten braces, you don't necessarily need to give almonds up. You simply need to change the way that you eat them. Here are 4 brace-friendly ways to enjoy almonds without harming your braces.
Make Some Almond Milk
If it's the flavour that you crave, you can create some almond milk instead of munching on raw almonds. To make almond milk:
- Leave your almonds to soak for up to 2 days.
- Rinse them off.
- Add them to a blender with water and blend them on full power.
- Press the almond milk out of the resulting mush by pushing down in the strainer with a spatula.
- Add sugar to sweeten.
Grind Your Almonds into Nut Butter
All you need to create almond butter is a food processor and about 20 minutes of your time. Once the almonds have been ground down enough to release the oils within them, you'll be left with a smooth and creamy mixture that you can enjoy with bread, fruit and even ice-cream.
Soak them Overnight Beforehand
As with the first recommendation, you can soften your almonds by soaking them overnight. Soaking almonds actually comes with a further benefit besides making them softer and easier to chew.
Nuts and seeds contain enzyme inhibitors whose job it is to prevent the nuts from sprouting too early. These inhibitors can irritate your digestive system and make it more difficult for you to get the full benefit of the nutrients contained within the nut. Soaking your almonds overnight; however, releases those harmful inhibitors allowing you to enjoy almonds that are both kind to your braces and your stomach.
Grind Your Almonds and Eat them with Salads or Cereals
Finally, a simple way of enjoying almonds while still getting a small amount of crunch is to grind them before eating them. This way, you can still enjoy the rich flavour and they can be added to salads, cereals, smoothies or other soft desserts.
You can still enjoy your favourite nut, but never take the risk of chewing them without doing something to soften them first. Not only will chewing hard nuts with braces likely damage your braces, but you will also affect the effectiveness of your treatment by slowing it down.
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