Comment by heavyset_go
21 days ago
Fluoridated water, enriched flour, iodized salt, vaccines, etc. are why we don't see diseases and conditions that plagued us in the past and continue to plague people in places without these measures.
Fluoridated water is the reason I've never had a cavity despite growing up poor with a terrible diet, dental hygiene and care.
> Fluoridated water is the reason I've never had a cavity despite growing up poor with a terrible diet, dental hygiene and care.
I don’t follow the leap here. You could just be blessed with a good oral microbiome, proper calcium, D3 (sunlight exposure?), K2 etc.
Going by your logic, there should be no dentists in the US.
There is no leap, when I finally got good access to dental care, I've had dentists tell me water fluoridation is what kept me from tooth decay in the chronic absence of dental care and basic hygiene.
Enriched flour is another good example that I was hoping someone would mention*.
It’s worth noting that it’s also slightly different in that processed flour is deficient in thiamin and calcium, so the fortification adds back these nutrients.
On the other hand, processing water to make it potable doesn’t remove fluoride and so fluoridation is not the process of adding back something that was there beforehand.
*I searched this page and found flouride and flouridation four times before your comment.
I've seen the enriched flour brought up a few times in this thread, and not with the important caveat: This is a poor substitute for the micronutrients that occur naturally in the bran and endosperm; parts of the grain that we've been stripping out for dubious reasons or 50-100 years. (In ~100% of restaurant and bakery food; ~90% of grocery food)