How did the ancient peoples clean their teeth?

Question

They didn't have tooth brushes, tooth paste or dental floss so I wonder how they managed to keep their teeth from falling off?

Answer 1

They ate good basic food and some of the food was hard and scraped their teeth as they ate. I had a friend from Viet Nam and he said they always ate this very hard black bread just for that reason. He never had a cavity until he came to USA.

There used to be a very hard cracker called Hard Tack. My Dad used to get it once in a while. It was like chewing up a pane of glass....LOL, well not quite that bad. Seems as though I bought some a couple years ago but it was significantly softer than I remember.

In more recent times there was a whole industry built up around charcoal and one of it's uses was for cleaning teeth.
Buy some of those charcoal digestive aid capsules, open one up and put the black powder in your mouth, and add a little water or even use your toothbrush. It is very refreshing and cleans up just by swishing and spitting. No harm if you swallow it either.

Answer 2

Not as big a problem without sugar/refined flour in the diet, but there are things you can use. Ashes, Ground Pepper, finely ground eggshell. They would add an abrasive like I listed with an astringent, like mint or myrrh.

Answer 3

You would have used a twig,chewed mint but frankly most of them didn't have all their teeth.

Answer 4

With the bark of a tree that actually whitened it too.

Answer 5

They didn't need to, they were always fighting and died before 30.

Answer 6

actually they would chew on the end of a stick

Answer 7

THEY CHEWED MINT TREE BARK........TRUE!

Answer 8

with leaves?