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“Can you eat with dentures” may seem like a straightforward, yes or no question but there’s a lot more to unpack than you may expect.
Especially if you have missing or failing teeth, you’ll want to know why people are switching from dentures to dental implants before you make a decision. What you decide will have a significant impact on what you’ll be able to comfortably eat!
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How Dentures and Dental Implants Are Different
Want to be able to grab a snack and hit the road? That likely won’t be an option with dentures.
Although dentures are designed to replace missing teeth, they are not a permanent solution and they come with many drawbacks.
Dentures can lead to sore gums, frequent gagging, and limitations on what you can eat. They are made from acrylic plastics that can be prone to breaking and need to be refitted occasionally due to the jawbone shrinking with prolonged use.
If you want to know when you can bite and chew like you used to with natural teeth, then the answer for denture wearers is never. You may never get anywhere close to your original bite force with dentures.
Dentures can also loosen while you’re wearing them and make it difficult to speak properly, let alone chew food thoroughly.
On the other hand, full mouth dental implants are a permanent solution to missing teeth that are not removable like dentures. They are fixed in place and are designed to last a lifetime.
The bite force of dental implants is much closer to natural, healthy teeth and you won’t have to worry about them falling out.
Depending on the state of your teeth, what you can eat with dentures may be an improvement to where you were before but you’ll still be limited. Those with dentures often eventually choose to get dental implants to restore their ability to eat all the foods they’d like.
Curious if you may be a candidate for full mouth dental implants? Take this 60-second quiz to find out.
[Dental Implants vs Dentures Pic]
What Can You Eat With Dentures vs Dental Implants
Dentures will limit what you’re able to eat no matter how long you’ve had them. Dental implants only come with limitations during the healing period after the procedure. This is likely to be somewhere around 4 months.
So what can you eat with either solution during and after the healing periods? Keep reading to find out.
Planning Meals for Dentures or Dental Implants After The Procedure
If you have recently replaced your missing teeth with dentures or gotten dental implants with permanent teeth in 24 hours, then you likely have also had your teeth pulled. Your mouth is sore and still healing. You must choose your diet carefully.
For dentures, consider choosing nutritious juices, applesauce, smoothies, mashed potatoes, pudding, or soup … but that soup cannot be too hot. Even though you’re limited, it’s important to still get proper nutrition.
The options are greater with dental implants, depending on the procedure you get. With Nuvia’s permanent teeth in 24 hours, patients get their permanent zirconia teeth 24 hours after the procedure and can begin using them on a soft food diet right away. This consists of food you can cut with a fork and is typically recommended for only 4 months.
Traditional methods of getting dental implants may provide a more similar experience to getting dentures for the first time and could require a liquid-only diet for some time.
After the healing period for those who have had their teeth removed to get dentures, soft foods will still be an easier option.
SOFT FOODS YOU CAN EAT WITH DENTURES
Your gums have to adapt to chewing and biting again without your natural teeth attached to the jawbone. This can be a difficult adjustment.
After you’ve already eaten foods like applesauce and mashed veggies, you can graduate up to foods that are slightly more solid. You will want them to be in the tiniest pieces possible.
Here are some examples:
- Baked beans
- Skin-free, fresh fish
- Cooked greens
- Pasta
- Cooked rice
- Soft bread
When you have dentures, you’re going to have to think before eating. There are some foods that you just shouldn’t eat because they’ll cause you too many problems to be worth it.
Now you know the answer to “can you eat with dentures” is yes. However, it’s not quite so simple. Here are some foods that you should probably stay away from with dentures even after the healing period:
Things You Can’t Eat With Dentures
Tough Meat: If you have to chew and chew the same piece of meat in order to make it easy enough to swallow, that is a bad combination with dentures and gums. All of the gnawing can result in denture sores on the gums.
Even with tough meat like steak, your dental implants aren’t going anywhere. No need to say goodbye to food you love because it causes you pain.
Hard Foods: Biting and chewing on hard foods can cause you to have uneven bite pressure. Guess what happens with uneven bite pressure … Your dentures can become loose or damaged. It can be easier to just say no to carrots, corn on the cob, nuts, apples, and popcorn.
With dental implants you don’t have to worry about maintaining even bite pressure and hard foods like those above aren’t a problem.
Sticky Foods: Not only are the foods going to stick to your fingers, but they’ll stick to your dentures and pull them loose and off-kilter. That leaves room for food to get stuck underneath your dentures, irritate your gums, and can give you horrible breath.
The teeth attached to dental implants aren’t going anywhere. The dental implants themselves become fused to the jawbone and securely hold the fake teeth in place. They won’t be pulled loose or need to be readjusted.
Foods With Small Pieces: Anytime you eat something with food that has tiny pieces that break off, it will be very hard to chew. Those little things come in the form of nuts, popcorn kernels, chia seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, etc.
Replacement Teeth That Really Bite - Permanent Teeth in 24 Hours
With dentures, you may be constantly asking yourself, “what can you eat with dentures”. Dental implants take away the limitations, worry, and frustration that dentures come with.
If you don’t want to drink through a straw or plan your food around your teeth, perhaps you should just get rid of your dentures. Better yet, don’t get dentures in the first place!
If you want replacement teeth that you can actually sink into your food, you need full mouth dental implants. Nuvia uses incredible processes and technology to allow for permanent dental implants in just 24 hours.
Twenty-four hours after walking into our office for surgery, you will make your journey home and *immediately be able to eat soft foods. Within a few months, your implants will be so securely integrated into your mouth that you can have enough of your bite force back to eat steak, nuts, anything you want. That is security that traditional dentures can't offer.
