If you have a date night on your agenda, you might try to avoid any dish that contains onion or garlic to spare your date from onion breath. While onions can leave a lingering smell in your mouth, they can also benefit your oral health.

Before you pass up on a dish that contains onions for fear of bad breath, learn how onions can benefit your oral health first.

selection of onions

Onions Contain Antibacterial Compounds

From time immemorial, onions have been used as a food remedy for a myriad of health issues. Why? Raw or cooked, onions have anti-inflammatory, anticholesterol, anticancer, and antioxidant properties which may help with many diseases such as diabetes, osteoporosis, and high blood pressure. It might surprise you to learn that onions are one of the best foods for your smile too!

Because they contain an antibacterial compound that kills many types of oral bacteria, onions can help diminish the severity of gingivitis and periodontitis (gum diseases). Eating them raw produces the maximum benefit.

On the nutritional front, onions contain numerous vitamins and minerals…and on top of all that, they are inexpensive and delicious!

Onions Also Cure Odor

In the children’s classic Holes written by Louis Sacher, Stanley Yelnets III discovered that combining peaches and onions were a cure for stinky feet, while located in the fictional town of Green Lake, Texas, it seems like it wouldn’t be unlike Wichita Falls in some ways. Onions can absorb smells simply overnight. If your home has an odd musty smell after a rain, slice an onion in half and leave it in the room overnight. On the following morning, throw the onion away and you will discover the smell has disappeared although it may smell like an onion at first. Although an onion might give you onion breath, it can kill the bacteria causing your bad breath to begin with.

How to Relieve Onion Breath

Now that you know how to get rid of bad breath by eating onions, you might wonder how to get rid of the onion breath. It’s actually quite simple. To get rid of onion breath, you can eat parsley, mint or apples, drink green tea, brush and floss your teeth, drink diluted apple cider vinegar, or chew spearmint gum.

Now that you know how beneficial onions are to your health, you can stop skipping them in your meals. If you have a date, just bring along a piece of gum to chew afterward. If you’re finding that eating onions isn’t helping your bad breath or perhaps making it worse, make sure you’re keeping up with regular dental cleanings. At StarImage Dentistry, we encourage our patients to visit us every 6 months to remove plaque, tartar, and smelly bacteria from the mouth.

If you are overdue to your dental appointment in Wichita Falls, please contact us today to schedule your next visit at 940-322-2252.