{"id":56996,"date":"2021-03-06T08:50:01","date_gmt":"2021-03-06T13:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56996"},"modified":"2021-03-06T09:05:23","modified_gmt":"2021-03-06T14:05:23","slug":"natures-original-toothbrush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56996","title":{"rendered":"Nature\u2019s Original Toothbrush"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0Photo by\u00a0vadim kaipov<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Nature\u2019s Original Toothbrush<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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Researching the topic of\u00a0homemade toothpastes<\/a>\u00a0recently, I began to wonder what people did before there were plastic toothbrushes.<\/p>\n

Turns out that we\u2019ve been cleaning our teeth since probably before we walked upright on two legs. In this article, I\u2019ll share what I\u2019ve recently learned about how it was done (and in many parts of the world, still is).<\/p>\n

Teeth Cleaning In Its original Form<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cast your mind back to the last time you were out on a picnic, you\u2019d finished eating, and you were lazing about on the grass in the sunshine.<\/p>\n

Did anyone in the group pluck a grass stem and start poking about between their teeth with it? That\u2019s teeth cleaning, in its original form.<\/p>\n

Now, think about the last time you threw a stick (or saw someone else throw a stick) for a dog? Did the dog ever stop bringing the stick back, plop down on the grass, and just gnaw on the stick? That\u2019s also teeth cleaning in its original form.<\/p>\n

Teeth Cleaning Goes Way Back<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mass production makes modern materials like plastics, and widgets like toothbrushes, so readily available to us that we who rely on supermarkets have forgotten there was ever any other way.<\/p>\n

But there are other ways, and they go way back. Here are some bits and pieces I found when I searched for how pre-historic people cleaned their teeth.<\/p>\n

An article called\u00a0\u201cTeeth cleaning: an ancient habit\u201d<\/a>\u00a0describes how fossilised teeth from ancient hominids, and experiments done to replicate grooves in the teeth, suggest that early humans used grass stalks as tooth picks, just as we do today when we go on picnics. (Grass contains hard, abrasive silica particles, which may explain the grooves seen on those ancient teeth.)<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Photo by\u00a0vadim kaipov\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash Nature\u2019s Original Toothbrush Researching the topic of\u00a0homemade toothpastes\u00a0recently, I began to wonder what people did before there were plastic toothbrushes. Turns out that we\u2019ve been cleaning our teeth since probably before we walked upright on two legs. In this article, I\u2019ll share what I\u2019ve recently learned about how it was done (and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[22072,9358,31003,31004],"class_list":["post-56996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survival-2","tag-kate-martignier","tag-permaculture-research-institute","tag-personal-healthcare","tag-teeth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56996"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56999,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56996\/revisions\/56999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}