Freshen Up Your Breath Naturally With These Yummy Foods
Bad breath is super annoying and unpleasant
both for you and those around you. And even if you’re healthy and
maintain oral and dental hygiene, mouth odor can persist for hours after
accidentally eating certain foods that cause bad breath. Luckily, there
are also those foods and drinks that have the opposite effect on our
breath. Specific foods, herbs, and drinks, such as the 8 we’ll list
below, have been known to naturally reduce a smelly breath. You can
incorporate them in your diet regularly, if you haven’t already, and
stop worrying about your breath once and for all, without the use of gum
or mints.
1. Plain yogurt 
This first one may strike you by surprise, but it's true, plain white
yogurt or Greek yogurt have a beneficial effect not only for your gut
health, but also for youth oral health, and it improves bad breath, too.
The probiotics in the yogurt help the good bacteria in your mouth grow
strong and decrease the number of bad bacteria that produce hydrogen
sulfide, the cause of bad breath. This was backed by a 2005 study that
found that participants who ate plain yogurt for 6 weeks had less
hydrogen sulfide in their mouths, as well as less plaque and healthier
gums.
2. Parsley and other herbs
Had a dinner that was a bit too abundant in terms of the garlic? Before
you run to the store to pick up some mints, check if you have any fresh
herbs, such as parsley, rosemary, or basil around. These herbs naturally
contain fragrant oils that will help you mask the garlic breath just as
well as mint, if not better.
Related Article: Bad Breath and Your Health
3. Cinnamon
The health benefits of cinnamon are plenty, but crucially for oral
health, cinnamon has powerful antimicrobial properties that can help you
get rid of the odor-causing bacteria and helps improve your dental
health, too. Cinnamon oil, in particular, is known to break down the
volatile sulfurous compounds that cause bad breath.
4. Ginger
Like cinnamon, ginger is renowned for its antimicrobial abilities, as
well as the added benefit of soothing digestion, too. If you need to
restore the freshness of your breath after an especially pungent meal,
munching down a small piece of ginger or drinking a cup of ginger tea
after the meal will be able to neutralize any unpleasant smells, leaving
your smile fresher than ever.
5. Green tea
Foods That Can Freshen Up Your Breath Green tea
Like
Green tea is probably one of the healthiest drinks you could have,
period. After all, there's a reason why it is customary to finish up any
meal with a glass of green tea in many Asian countries. It turns out
that green tea contains certain compounds called polyphenols that can
banish bad bacteria in the mouth and the unpleasant smells along with
them, too. There are added benefits to drinking green - from protecting
you from certain types of mouth cancer to keeping your teeth healthy as
well.
6. Melons 
Watermelons, cantaloupes, honeydew melons - choose your favorite dessert
to follow after any meal to refresh your breath. Not only are all of
these juicy fruits super hydrating and will help flush out any debris
from in-between your teeth, but they are also rich in vitamin C. It
turns out that eating ascorbic acid (another name for vitamin C), makes
the environment in your mouth cavity too acidic for bad bacteria to
thrive, thereby helping you get rid of all those bad smells, too.
7. Fennel seeds
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A method of getting rid of bad breath that comes from India requires one
to simply chew on some fennel seeds after a meal. Fennel oils have
antibacterial properties that will neutralize your breath, and the act
of chewing also increases saliva production, which helps clean away any
food particles and bacteria from your mouth. To learn more about fennel
and the ways it can be used to maintain health in our previous article
The 12 Health Benefits of Fennel.
8. Apples 
We might have kept the best for last. Of course, we all know that apples
are good for you, but it turns out that these juicy fruits are
especially beneficial for our dental and oral health. Not only are they
rich in both Vitamin C and polyphenols that will help kill all those
odor-generating bacteria, but the juiciness of the fruit will also help
clean out in-between your teeth as you're biting on the fruit. We're not
certain about all doctors, but an apple a day certainly keeps the
dentist away.