Eating with braces: what to avoid
You don't have to live on soup while you have braces, but some foods and habits break brackets and bend wires. Every breakage slows your treatment down, so it's worth getting used to these rules from day one.
Why breakages matter
We normally see you around every 8 weeks to adjust your brace. If several parts are broken when you arrive, there won't be time to repair them at a routine appointment. You'll need a separate repair visit, which could be a couple of weeks later. That can mean around 10 weeks when your brace isn't working properly. Repeated breakages add months to treatment.
We use a card system for repeated breakages: first a yellow card, then a red card. A red card means the braces are removed and treatment is stopped.
Foods to avoid
- Popcorn: husks get stuck around the brackets and hard kernels can break them.
- Nuts: hard enough to bend wires.
- Chewing gum: sticks to everything and can pull on the wires.
- Sweets: hard, chewy and sticky sweets (toffees, boiled sweets, chewy bars) can all pull brackets off. Less sugar is better for your teeth anyway.
- Crusty rolls and bagels: the tough chewing can loosen brackets. If you really want one, tear it into small pieces and chew with your back teeth.
- Crisps, tortilla chips, taco shells and hard crackers: sharp, hard pieces can snap brackets. Soft tortilla wraps are a good swap.
- Pizza crust: too tough and chewy.
- Ice: ice in drinks is fine, but chewing it is one of the most common causes of broken braces.
- Raw crunchy fruit and vegetables: don't bite into whole apples, pears or raw carrots. Cut them into small pieces first.
- Corn on the cob: cut the corn off the cob before eating.
Habits that break braces
- Chewing pens or pencils at school or college
- Biting your fingernails
- Picking at the brace. This can move the wire and put too much force on a tooth, which can damage it.
- Playing sport without a mouthguard. An orthodontic mouthguard protects your brace, your teeth and your face.
What you can eat
Most everyday meals are fine, especially softer foods: pasta, rice, soft bread, eggs, fish, chicken cut into small pieces, soups, yoghurt, soft fruit like bananas and berries, and cooked vegetables. Cutting food up and chewing with your back teeth helps a lot.
Keep your teeth clean
Braces hold plaque against your teeth, so decay can happen much faster. Brush carefully around every bracket. If your teeth start to be damaged, we have to remove the braces. Healthy teeth that aren't straight are better than straight teeth with decay.
Note for parents: you can control what your child eats at home, but not at school, which is often where breakages happen. It's worth talking through these rules together.
These rules are also part of our NHS Orthodontic Consent Form (PDF).