What you eat matters for your teeth — but so does how often you eat. That second part catches people off guard, so it's worth explaining.
How food turns into tooth decay
Your teeth are always covered in a thin layer of plaque — a sticky film of bacteria. When you eat or drink something with sugar or starch, those bacteria produce acid, and that acid starts chipping away at your enamel.
Here's the thing about plaque being sticky: it holds the acid right against your teeth, so the damage keeps going for a while after you've eaten. Every snack or sip is another round of acid. Graze all day on crackers and soda, and your teeth never get a break.
The takeaway
It's not that sugar is forbidden — it's that frequent snacking is harder on your teeth than eating the same stuff in one sitting. Give your mouth some downtime between meals, drink water through the day, and the rest takes care of itself.