Braces are the ultimate way to achieve a straight smile and boost your confidence. However, when you first get braces, you’re entering a world with a series of restrictions, including what you can eat.
What exactly can you eat with braces, and what can’t you eat? Can you eat oatmeal with braces? In this article, we’ll explain the answers to these questions to ensure your braces treatment goes smoothly.
What Are Braces?
Braces are an orthodontic treatment in which a metal appliance shifts your crooked teeth into place. The result is a straighter smile and a more functional mouth to chew your food more easily. Sometimes, braces can even help you speak more clearly.
Different orthodontic treatments, including traditional metal braces and Invisalign, involve wearing clear aligners to shift your teeth. Invisalign is less invasive than traditional braces, and taking care of your teeth with Invisalign is generally easier.
The full braces treatment can last anywhere from a few months to a few years, depending on how severe your crooked teeth are. During this time, you must take care of your teeth and keep up with good oral health.
What’s more, you must also watch what foods you eat with braces, as some foods can easily get stuck in your braces and break the appliance. The first week of braces is when you should be the most cautious with your foods to get a feel for what you can comfortably chew.
So can you eat oatmeal with braces? Let’s find out.
Can You Eat Oatmeal With Braces?
Yes, you can very easily eat oatmeal with braces.
Oatmeal is an ideal meal for someone with braces and anyone recovering from any other dental work. It’s soft and easy to chew, so there’s no risk of breaking your braces, nor will it get stuck between the brackets.
What you put in your oatmeal is the only thing to be careful with. While wearing braces, you should generally stay away from hard foods such as nuts. If you like to put nuts in your oatmeal, adding slivered nuts that are easier to chew and less likely to damage the wire or brackets in your mouth is safer.
Let’s take a look at what other foods you should stay away from with braces.
Types of Food to Avoid With Braces
Understanding which foods you can’t eat while you have braces is essential to avoid interrupting your treatment. As mentioned, hard foods are a big no-no when you have braces. Hard, crunchy foods to stay away from include:
- Nuts
- Hard candy
- Chips
- Hard taco shells
- Hard crackers
Another category of food to avoid with braces is hard foods that you must bite into – especially stone fruit or any fruit or vegetable with a core. Specifically, you should avoid biting:
- Apples
- Pears
- Corn on the cob
- Peaches
Biting into these fruits is dangerous as you risk breaking your braces. The pit threatens your teeth and braces even with soft fruit such as peaches.
However, this does not mean you can’t enjoy your favorite fruits. If you want to eat these fruits and vegetables, removing stones from fruits and cutting harder fruits such as apples into small pieces is a good idea. You should also always remove the corn from the cob and eat it with a spoon.
There are a variety of other delicious foods that you can enjoy with braces. Let’s take a look.
Foods That Are Braces-Approved
The good news is that there are many more foods that you can eat than you can’t eat with braces.
In general, you can continue to eat many of the foods you already enjoy while you have braces. You have to remain conscious of your teeth while eating certain foods to avoid getting stuck or biting down on foods that are too hard.
Plus, as mentioned, there are ways that you can manipulate your favorite foods so that you may enjoy them again, such as by cooking them to become soft or cutting them into smaller pieces.
Here are some softer foods, besides oatmeal, that you can comfortably enjoy with braces.
- Yogurt
- Eggs cooked in any way
- Bananas
- Soft fruits and vegetables
- Potatoes
- Protein shakes and smoothies
- Soup
- Bread
- Sweets, such as cake!
Wrap-Up: Can You Eat Oatmeal With Braces? Yep!
Yes, you can eat oatmeal with braces. You can eat many of your favorite foods with braces, as long as they’re soft enough not to break your brackets.
While you may have to give up candy, apples, and popcorn while you have braces, this is only a temporary sacrifice – for a few years max. There are still a variety of foods you can enjoy in the meantime, and it may even be an opportunity to get creative with your recipes!
