Tina makes great corn-on-the-cob, and I ate two ears today (I can’t hear anything!), but every time I eat it, I get a bunch of corn stuck between my teeth. The main purpose for brushing and flossing is to remove dental plaque, an invisible, sticky substance of sloughed-off skin cells, bacteria, and food particles that forms on your teeth in as little as twenty minutes.

Proper toothbrushing is great for removing plaque, but the toothbrush bristles are too small to reach in between the teeth. That’s where floss comes in. Used properly, it removes the plaque where the brush can’t. We recommend brushing at least twice a day and flossing (or other interdental cleaning) at least once. Personally, I’m a bit obsessed, brushing at least three or four times a day and frequently flossing two or three.

Besides removing plaque, however, floss is excellent at removing large food particles from between the teeth, especially corn. After eating the corn-on-the-cob today, my teeth were full of corn skin — it was awful! Naturally, I thoroughly flossed (and brushed) my teeth, and in very little time, my teeth felt incredibly clean. I thought about it, and floss is really just string on a spool, but you don’t need any batteries for it and you don’t need an IT guy to help you with it. It always works (although some of the cheaper brands of floss break too easily).

In this high-tech world we live in, I am very grateful for something very low-tech: our old friend dental floss.