Evolution of diet & oral health

Diet and oral health have always evolved together. As human food changed from wild, fibrous plants and hunted meat to soft, ultra‑processed products, the mouth quietly recorded that history in the form of plaque, decay, and tooth loss.

Palaeolithic era: teeth built for the wild

Before agriculture, humans lived as hunter‑gatherers, eating what the landscape offered at different times of the year.

• Diets were diverse and seasonal, with wild meat, fish, roots, leaves, fruits, nuts, and seeds.

• This pattern naturally created protein‑rich, fibre‑dense meals loaded with micronutrients, but very low in added or free sugars.

• Foods were often fibrous and abrasive, demanding heavy chewing and constant mechanical cleaning of tooth surfaces.

In this setting, the mouth benefited from nature’s own toothbrush. Chewing tough, unrefined foods helped disrupt plaque, maintain a more balanced oral microbiome, and mechanically polish teeth. Caries still occurred, but far less frequently, and tooth loss from decay was relatively limited compared with later agricultural and industrial populations.

Neolithic era: farming, grains, and more plaque

The agricultural revolution changed everything—not just for land and society, but for the mouth.

• Communities began to rely heavily on starchy staples like wheat, barley, millet, and later rice.

• Diet diversity shrank as foraged plants and hunted animals were partly replaced by cultivated grains and domesticated animals.

• Milling and cooking techniques introduced more refined carbohydrates, which break down quickly into sugars that bacteria love.

Sticky starch residues adhere easily to enamel, feeding plaque bacteria and increasing acid production after meals. Over time this shift led to:

• More plaque accumulation, particularly in pits, fissures, and interproximal regions.

• Higher rates of dental decay and earlier tooth loss, clearly visible in archaeological skulls from farming communities compared with their hunter‑gatherer predecessors.

Industrial and information ages: ultra‑processed mouths

With industrialization and global trade came cheap sugar, white flour, and factory‑made foods. The digital age added constant snacking and screen‑linked eating habits.

• Diets became dominated by ultra‑processed foods: soft breads, biscuits, chips, confectionery, sodas, sweetened beverages, and ready‑to‑eat meals.

• Sugar content surged, both obvious (desserts) and hidden (sauces, breakfast cereals, “health” bars).

• Artificial additives—flavours, colourants, emulsifiers, stabilisers—became standard in daily intake.

• Natural fibre content dropped sharply, removing the chewing effort and gentle abrasion that once helped keep teeth cleaner.

In this environment, plaque biofilms receive frequent, easy access to fermentable carbohydrates. Acids are produced more often and for longer periods, pushing the oral ecosystem toward chronic demineralisation, enamel erosion, and inflammatory conditions like gingivitis and periodontitis. The modern mouth is constantly under biochemical attack, even when it “looks” clean to the eye.

From tooth powder to toothpaste: convenience and compromise

As diets softened and sugar intake climbed, people needed more deliberate tools to clean their teeth. That story is also a shift from simple, often natural powders to complex commercial pastes.

Tooth powders: simple, mechanical, and mostly biocompatible

Earlier tooth‑cleaning practices around the world used:

• Mineral and plant‑based powders (ashes, clays, salts, charcoal, ground herbs) applied with fingers, cloths, or chew sticks.

• Implements like neem and miswak sticks, which combined mechanical plaque removal with mild antimicrobial and salivary‑stimulating effects.

These approaches were:

• Mechanically effective at disrupting plaque when used consistently.

• Often chemically simple, with few or no synthetic excipients.

• Generally biocompatible and sustainable, though some traditional powders were overly abrasive if used aggressively or formulated with harsh minerals.

Tooth powders, however, faced practical challenges in the modern era:

• Less convenient and messier to use and store.

• Harder to standardise and scale for mass production and global branding.

• Perceived as “old‑fashioned” compared with colourful, flavoured pastes in neat tubes.

Toothpaste: mass‑market convenience with hidden trade‑offs

Modern toothpaste became the global standard because it solved problems of convenience and palatability.

• Pastes are easy to dose, squeeze, and spread over teeth with a brush.

• Formulators can tune flavour, foaming, colour, and texture for strong consumer appeal.

• Industrial manufacturing enables consistent products and massive commercial scalability.

To achieve this, however, toothpastes rely on a cocktail of non‑inert excipients:

• Surfactants (e.g., SLS) for foam, which can irritate mucosa in some individuals.

• Humectants, thickeners, sweeteners, colourants, preservatives, and flavouring agents.

• Various actives for whitening, sensitivity, anti‑plaque claims, and more.

While many formulations are safe within regulatory limits, the long‑term biocompatibility and cumulative exposure to certain ingredients remain under discussion. Some agents may cause short‑term effects (mucosal irritation, altered taste, dryness), while others raise questions about subtle, long‑term impacts on the oral microbiome and systemic health.

In contrast, earlier tooth‑cleaning methods—simple mineral powders, plant sticks, and minimally processed ingredients—tended to be less chemically complex, less resource‑intensive, and more sustainable, even if they lacked the marketing polish and sensory profile of modern paste.

Why this evolution matters for the future

The journey from wild foods and simple powders to ultra‑processed diets and highly engineered toothpastes shows a consistent pattern:

• Softer, sweeter, more convenient food leads to more work for the mouth.

• More complex commercial formulations can help, but they also introduce new variables for health and the environment.

Re‑examining traditional practices, nutrient‑dense diets, and biocompatible tooth‑cleaning agents is not about nostalgia. It is about recognising that the healthiest oral ecosystems historically depended on:

• Fewer refined carbohydrates,

• More natural fibre and chewing, and

• Cleaning tools that support, rather than fight, the biology of the mouth.

That is the context in which a thoughtfully formulated tooth powder—especially one built from simple, mineral‑rich, and sustainable ingredients—can be seen not as a step backward, but as an attempt to realign modern oral care with what human teeth evolved to handle.