Anyway ... I was sitting in the chair and I asked the dentist something that I had personally been curious about for a while. What do the toothpaste companies use to sweeten their product? Surely, it must not be sugar, since dentists have always said how bad it is for your teeth. I have looked on toothpaste tubes at home for the ingredients, but I guess since it is not a food product, there is no requirement to reveal the ingredients. They do often go out of their way to tell you that it contains fluoride, however.
The dentist had no answer for me, though she was reasonably sure that they use some form of artificial sweetener. It seems to me that this should be disclosed. What if you are allergic to whatever they are using?
It turns out there is quite a lot in toothpaste. Wikipedia lists toothpaste as potentially having: Abrasives, Fluorides, Surfactants, Antibacterial agents, Flavorants, Remineralizers and Miscellaneous components (which can include: glycerol, sorbitol, xylitol, or related derivatives, such as 1,2-propylene glycol and polyethyleneglycol). I would assume from the names of those last ingredients that those are the sweeteners.
So there you have it. Maybe it's possible that the reason they don't list the ingredients is because there is no room on the tube!
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2 comments:
I never thought to ask what sweetens tooth paste. But once you posed the question I became gripped. But, what's the answer in the end? What are those weird sounding ---itols?
In foods and beverages, glycerol serves as a sweetener. Sorbitol, also known as glucitol, is a sugar alcohol that the human body metabolizes slowly. Xylitol is a sugar alcohol sweetener used as a naturally occurring sugar substitute.
At risk of sounding like a 'know-it-all', rest assured that all of this information came from Wikipedia -- the "fount of all knowledge".
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