Do you Oil Pull?

Ok, for starters, what is oil pulling?  It is the latest health trend where you swish oil around in your mouth and then spit it out.   No not car oil!

Here is my story.  I read about oil pulling a while ago and about all the good health and dental benefits from this practice.  Now to back track a little, my husband was changing jobs, which meant we had no dental benefits at all for the next while.  I usually go to get my teeth cleaned at the dentist every 6 months as I get a large amount of tarter built up and my teeth start to yellow in that time.  So of course I’m starting to panic about how horrible my dental cleaning is going to be if I don’t go for a full year.   So I decided to give oil pulling a try.

What I did is use light virgin olive oil.  Some people use coconut oil, but that just wasn’t very palatable for me at all.   So I put about a teaspoon of olive oil in my mouth and started to swish it around my teeth.  The first time I just about gagged, having a thick oil in your mouth is not the greatest to start with.  I did get used to it and it does not bother me at all now.   I’d swish for about 4 minutes (I did this while I was putting my contacts in my eyes).  Then I’d spit it out.  I now spit in to a facial tissue and toss in the garbage, but when I first started I spit it out into the sink (kind of made a mess).  Then I would floss my teeth and brush my teeth like normal.  I only do the oil pulling once per day.

Well the results are:  After going twice as long as I ever have gone between dental cleanings, I have had the best checkup ever!  And hardly any plaque buildup on my teeth.  Not to mention my teeth were whiter.

So bottom line is this is now a practice I have incorporated into my daily routine, and I recommend you try it as well.  Your mouth and teeth will love you for it.