Foods to avoid?

[Cowans2]

Hi,
I'm new to braces (2 weeks in) and just starting to progress beyond my smoothie/soup diet again. Ordered a grilled cheese today and discovered to my chagrin that this wasn't a good choice as all the gooey cheese got stuck in the brackets and took forever to get out.
Wondering if there are any other pitfalls that I should be aware of? as in foods to avoid?
I know about the hard candy/popcorn/corn on cob, but anything else that's a total pain? I'd love to know.
Thanks!

[Tobilei]

Mango is an absolute nightmare. It leaves invisible strings of weirdness that you cannot get to unwind from your brackets.

Spinach/lettuce/kale. It's bad cooked, but raw in a salad, a thousand times worse!!

Special K-turns to superglue in your brackets. Needs dynamite to blast it out of there.

Hmm I know there's more but I can't think of them right now.

Oh and be wary of eating a steak meat pie (with steak pieces, not mince) along with creaming soda (yes, I know I shouldn't be drinking that anyway-but I did just once). It will turn all the strings of meat stuck in your brackets hot pink

[beckyboo0205]

Flour tortillas (like for wraps) gum up pretty bad! I find them a little hard to bite into also if they are folded up and thick. They seem to get stuck to the bottom of the bottom brackets in like a 5 bracket width... and then they turn all gummy. Hard to pick out with your tongue.

[Zcooke]

I find I can eat almost anything once it is cut into tiny pieces and eaten with a teaspoon.
Sounds a bit extreme but means you don't lose your mind eating liquid food.
For example I had crab cakes and patatas bravas for dinner last night, cut it all into small pieces (enough to fit on a spoon) and none of it got stuck in my braces.
Worth a try :)

[djspeece]

I have abandoned the idea of avoiding food that gets stuck in my braces. One of my colleagues, a friend told me at lunch, "You can always eat a salad when we go to lunch" in responnse to my mumbled concerns of things getting stuck. To me that is a true friend. I can do a passable cleaning with my tongue and applying focused suction in places. I'm not sure what that might look like to others, but frankly am not that concerned. All part of the charm.
I love hot dogs, but they are truly a mess. I generally carry a travel toothbrush for making myself somewhat presentable when out and about. Then I blast things out with my industrial strength waterpik when I get home.

[isthistaken]

What not to avoid would be a much shorter list.

[amyhenna]

Mango is an absolute nightmare. It leaves invisible strings of weirdness that you cannot get to unwind from your brackets.

Spinach/lettuce/kale. It's bad cooked, but raw in a salad, a thousand times worse!!

I second this! I eat this stuff, but only at home. Greens give me a bright green grill, even when I try to shove them in the back of my mouth to chew. And mangos...what is UP with those?? They put a light orange stain around my ceramics & clear ligs that make my teeth look yellow/orange, and those stringy things are invisible, but will bother my tongue until I can find them and figure out how to get them out. Still, I eat them. But I prepare for a next couple of hours of finding stray mango hairs stuck in my teeth.

And hamburgers are a fork and knife affair. If I try to eat them hands-to-mouth style, the grill gets in the way so my teeth can't bite into them, and I end up having to turn them sideways to gnaw at them like a wild animal. And my side-gnawing technique won't work for long, as I'm getting my side braces on in two days.

[oimysizex]

Fruit is quite hard for me to eat, it all gets stuck, especially pineapple and mango. Sweets, crisps ('potato chips') are also a problem.

Other things i tend to avoid is rice, and harder to chew bread, especially in public or at work as i cant take all of my cleaning appliances to work etc haha.

[djss16]

Strange about the mango. I had mango the other day and no problems. I did not bite into it though... I cut it up into tiny square pieces. I had no stringy problems!

[Tobilei]

Could be the type of mango. Kensington pride mangoes are the really yummy one's but they have those stringy bits. You can get other mangoes that don't have them. They're still delicious but not quite as much (or it could just be that you cut the strings-I didn't cut mine up, just gnawed into it like always!)

And oh I forgot about the inability to bite!! Hamburgers just do not happen I usually end up deconstructing mine

As someone else stated above, the list of what doesn't get stuck would be much much shorter

[isthistaken]

Now that it's getting warmer, a frapuccino from Starbucks is nice. The spendy drinks are half price from 3pm-5pm right now. Of course, I was in the drive-thru at 2:30--story of my life. The espresso frap is good because it actually tastes like coffee. I used to like the java chip but alas no chips for me for awhile.

[MrsCharisma]

There are things that I will save for home because I'd hate to be stuck out with a dirty mouth

I love bread but it turns to dough on my braces. I get catered lunch very often at work (THANK YOU!) and I will cut that sandwich up like it's for a 2 year old! Then the pieces get pushed back to my molars and I try to only eat on one side when I'm eating stuff that I know will wreak havoc. That way I have heavily concentrated cleaning in one area only

I have ceramic uppers with pearl ligs so I avoid heavily colored food if I can to prevent staining. Stringy foods are messy - yes. Sadly, I eat much less fruit now than I did before because I can't "just eat it". I have to cut everything up first and that isn't always convenient.

[rhibee83]

canned chickpeas... do not even go there, bit on one today in a bean mix and it was like a rock... NOT COOL

[Tobilei]

Berry seeds!!! Especially blackberries. Ate some berry yoghurt yesterday and had brackets filled with teeny tiny rocks