Foods for Straight Teeth & Easy Breathing

Our teeth […] evolved over hundreds of millions of years to be incredibly strong and to align precisely for efficient chewing. […] Our dental disorders largely stem from a shift in the oral environment caused by the introduction of softer, more sugary foods than the ones our ancestors typically ate.

-- Peter S. Ungar

My face is asymmetrical, narrow, and awkward. My chin will likely never make a grand debut. I wore braces (twice). My parents paid a guy to surgically remove my wisdom teeth. I am plagued by cavities, bruxism, chronic fatigue, sleep apnea, and depression.

Many smart folks (and incels?) believe that soft foods messed up my face. I'm just a dude on the internet; here are some links: Wikipedia, video, book/pdf, book/pdf, book, paper, paper, paper, etc.

With my daughter, we had much success with baby-led feeding. As she grows, we plan on feeding her the following foods for healthy myofacial development:

• Dried produce: apple chips, banana chips, dried apricots, dates, mango chips, dried berries, dried melons slices, fruit leather, stuff like this
• Raw produce: broccoli/cauliflower, edimame, carrots, cabbage (quarter of a head), apples, jicama, radishes, celery
• Jerky: beef jerky, fish jerky, mushroom jerky
• Local meats: steaks, rotisserie chicken, turkey legs
• Crusts: hard sourdough rolls, weapons-grade baguettes
• Seeds/Nuts: almonds, macademia nuts, pumpkin seeds, chestnuts, brazil nuts, chia seeds, flax seeds

Maintaining an endless stream of nutritious food is difficult. Here's my general strategy:

1. As your budget allows, focus your grocery list on (1) protein-rich foods and (2) foods that were common before ~1600CE (see list above). Avoid anything with a nutrition label, especially foods targeted at babies/kids.
2. Prefer organic produce for little ones; pesticides impede brain development, but appear to have negligible effects on adults. By selling direct-to-consumer, local farmers' markets often sell pesticide-free produce at very affordable prices.
3. If possible, set up automatic grocery delivery to avoid in-store temptations.
4. Wash/prepare your produce (skip berries) as soon as you bring them home from the market. Be lazy -- never slice or skin anything that doesn't require it.
5. Store-bought snacks are dowsed in sugar and preservatives. Buy a dehydrator. Dry ~75% of all your meats and produce. Remember that fresh year-round produce is a contemporary phenomenon -- preservation was the norm. It's also very tasty.
6. Your dehydrator should always be running. It takes ~5 minutes to slice up stuff with a mandoline or rotary slicer and throw it on a tray. Get a cheap cleaver machine for big stuff.
7. Most dried foods will last years if vacuum-sealed with a magic $10 device. They'll last indefinitely in the freezer.
8. If your new food is too "boring", build a collection of oils/dips/butters/jams/spices to experiment with.

Additional things to consider:

• It's okay to leave stems/leaves on produce! Removing celery/carrot/strawberry "tops" is not worth the work. The stems/leaves are usually edible and easy to pry off with teeth/hands.
• Our daughter will chew on pretty much anything while we're rucking. The easiest way to buy an hour of quiet is to throw her in a carrier with a piece of jerky while doing dishes/yardwork/etc.
• There is some evidence that chewing resinous gum for 2h/day might be a good supplement for children.
• Our daughter refuses to eat lots of foods. Don't force it! Try "trail mixes" and other experiments.
• Prepare enough protein, even if it means eating soft foods like lentils and beans. Adults need 0.8g/kg/day (~60g). Toddlers need 1.2g/kg/day (~13g).
• Ordering matters a lot when feeding children. It's impossible to convince kids to eat raw cabbage after strawberry chips.
• Don't stress and do your best! Everybody else is winging it, too.