Any evidence of people in Inuit, Native American, etc., cultures before

[raccoon]

significant contact with Europeans having healthier teeth than Europeans of the same time period did?

Reason I asked is, the book GLOBAL PROBLEMS AND THE CULTURE OF CAPITALISM (good book, by the way) said around the year 1600 Europeans had significantly more sugar in their diets than they had previously.

[Redstone]

1. Yes, there's lots of documentation that says the Indians were shocked at

the condition of the Europeans' teeth when they first encountered the white folks.

There was also some amazement on the part of the Indians at how infrequently the Europeans bathed.

A good book to read that mentions this is "Creek Mary's Blood" by Dee Brown.

And NO, I'm not saying this because I'm half Indian. You can look it up.

Redstone

[EstimatedProphet]

2. At the time Europeans believed bathing was a death sentence from pneumonia

[hunter]

3. My grandma still believed that.

But she was way off her rocker. In worse circumstances she would have ended up as a homeless bag lady.

Needless to say, she didn't win any popularity contests in the nursing home she ended up in, especially since she was very good at finding ways to smoke and drink even though she wasn't supposed to.

[hunter]

4. My grandma still believed that.

But she was way off her rocker. In worse circumstances she would have ended up as a homeless bag lady.

Needless to say, she didn't win any popularity contests in the nursing home she ended up in, especially since she was very good at finding ways to smoke and drink even though she wasn't supposed to.

[supernova]

5. Yeah, it's no coincidence that intro of sugar

to the Europeans had a bad effect on their teeth.

It's fine if you can brush your teeth soon afterwards, but the toothbrush and toothpaste wouldn't be invented for another 400 years.

I don't know about honey, is it as bad as refined sugar on your teeth? I suspect not.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. I think honey is antibacterial

[supernova]

8. Yet another reason to love Baklava!

:9 :9 :9

[AllegroRondo]

9. yes, it is!

which is why its difficult to make alcoholic beverages from honey, it tends to kill off the yeast.

[DarkTirade]

11. It's mostly the acidity that kills the bacteria.

Which is why I really don't understand why some people choose to ADD acidity to their must when they're brewing mead... just doesn't seem to make much sense. Unless you can find a strain of yeast that can handle high acidity.

[Redstone]

12. The Indians used twigs as toothbrushes, as did Mrs R when she was a kid...try it

sometime. What you do is to "feather" the end of a twig and use it perpendicular to your teeth to scrub them - it works remarkable well, even without any toothpaste.

Redstone

[no name no slogan]

6. Check out "1491" by Charles Mann

It's a decent consumer-level pop-archeology book which has a fairly decent overview of pre-columbian American Indian culture.

As Redstone said, the Euros were in pretty sorry health compared to most of the Native Americans they encountered. They were shorter, malnourished and had worse overall health than the first Americans.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Years ago, I read that people in hunter-gatherer societies were the

second-healthiest populations after those living in affluent industrial societies.

Unlike people in affluent industrial societies, they have no way of saving those who are seriously injured or in difficult childbirth situations, but they have relatively few infectious diseases, being far from other people and generally living with unpolluted air and water. If the women can survive childbirth and if everyone can avoid serious injuries (falling off cliffs, getting caught in a fire, being killed in battle, etc.), they have as good a chance of living well into old age as a person in a modern industrial society.

The most unhealthy people in the world are slum dwellers in the Third World. They have no better access to medical care than the hunter-gatherers, but crowding, poor diets, the level of violence, and polluted environments mean that they are more likely to die young of disease or injury.

By the way, no name no slogan, stop by the Minnesota Forum to check up on the plans for the Minnesota holiday gathering.

[marzipanni]

13. This explains it pretty well

<snip>
In particular, researchers were eager to discover which bacterial species were responsible for caries formation. Caries are formed when the rate of decay of the teeth caused by the lactic acid produced by anaerobic bacteria exceeds the rate of repair initiated by the phosphate and calcium ions in saliva. Lactic acid production surges when sucrose is introduced into the mouth during meals or snacks, resulting in an overall drop in oral pH. If acidity is a prerequisite for caries formation, then only species that thrive in an acidic environment, known as acidophilic species, can play a role in producing them. In fact, when cultures simulating a community of oral bacteria were pulsed with glucose to produce a constant pH lower than 5, the acidophilic species Lactobacillus casei, Veilonella dispar, and especially Streptococcus mutans were able to dominate niches previously occupied by other, avirulent species, and became irreversibly over-represented in the population (Marsh 1994).
from: http://www.jyi.org/research/re.php?id=1355

Hmmm, I think I'll at least rinse my mouth with baking soda and water each time I munch on something!

[applegrove]

14. Sugarcane and the slave trade.