We put a a tiny robot Mars, to act as a one-man team of scientists, expanding what we know about our planetary neighbor, separated by 249 million miles, every single day. Our tiny cellphones have greater technological power than the world’s greatest supercomputer of just two decades ago. We have made medical advances to transplant a person’s face onto another person. Yet, we still don’t have the technology to know if we have bad breath without being told.

No matter how attractive or intelligent you are, if you have been touched by the halitosis fairy, that is the only impression you will leave on the people around you. The worst part of bad breath is that often, everyone around you knows it, but you have no idea. The best way to avoid the soul crushing humiliation of bad breath is with great oral hygiene.


Four Ways to Avoid the Funk of Bad Breath

1. Step up your brushing and flossing game. When you brush your teeth, it wipes out the bacteria population that causes bad breath, preventing them from reproducing and claiming your mouth as their independent kingdom. As you eat, breath air in, and burp, those feisty germs build up again. You should brush at least twice a day, but ideally 30 minutes after each meal, to reset your mouth’s bacteria population and prevent funky breath.
   
   
   Flossing is an equally important part of your daily regimen as brushing alone does nothing to clear the germs out of the tiny crevices between your teeth. Each bacterial organism left behind will tirelessly multiply itself until your mouth stinketh much again.
2. Use tongue cleaning products. There are 20 billion stink-inducing bacterial organisms in your mouth, primarily living all across your tongue. Disgustingly, they reproduce themselves every five hours. The best thing you can do to cut down those halitosis-makers is by including tongue cleaning products in your daily dental care routine. There are a variety of tongue cleaning products on the market, but we really like tongue scrapers. They evenly remove the germ-riddled film off the surface of your tongue, without engaging your gag reflex like brushing the back of your tongue does.
3. Give your mouth a quick rinse down frequently. Even when you’re out and about and can’t get to your oral care routine for a few hours, you should frequently rinse to wipe out the bad breath bad guys. Carrying a bacteria killing mouth wash is the best way to go, but if that’s not possible, at least swish some water around your mouth every couple hours to wash away the stinkers.
4. Stay away from pungent foods. We all love the flavor that onions and garlic add to a dish. However, both onions and garlic release a compound allyl methyl sulfide into your blood stream, which conveys to your lungs and keeps the overpowering aroma in your breath, even after you’ve thoroughly brushed. To avoid bad breath, stay away from dishes that contain strong odors. At least while on a hot date or in the company of friends you want to keep.

When someone around you has bad breath, do you do them the service of informing them or do you wince and bear it? Do you prefer to be told if bad breath strikes your mouth? We want to know all your thoughts on bad breath in the comment section!