Forget the Deep State Conspiracy, Donald. Investigate Why My Teeth Are Cracking!

I agree with Donald Trump. There is a deep state conspiracy in this country, but it is not the one he believes is undermining his administration. 

No, the conspiracy I see is so nefarious that only someone with my uncanny talent of perception has uncovered it. You have to be of a certain age, someone whose parents let them feast on cakes, cookies, candies and sugared soft drinks while young, the better to produce cavities in teeth that have now matured and are susceptible to cracking and needing crowns or implants. 

From personal experience I am convinced the American Dental Association and its members, having forged a bond in the 1950s and 1960s with the sugar industry to sabotage young mouths, is now locked in a comparable conspiracy with nut growers and their related products to chip away at older, more vulnerable, molars. 

Let me explain. My breakfast most mornings is cheese and fruit, along with almonds, walnuts and macadamia nuts. Sounds healthy and is healthy. But crunching down on nuts can be injurious to my filling-laden teeth. 

It is not only breakfast that is dangerous. The nut industry long has been advocating almonds and trail mix-type snacks as healthy alternatives to pastries and candy. 

It is a recipe for disaster encouraged, I am convinced, by a dental profession that fills fewer cavities because of fluoride protection, technically improved toothpastes, flossing, water-piking and electric toothbrushes. 

To maintain luxury lifestyles for its members the ADA has secretly funded the nut campaign. 

I haven’t had a cavity in decades, but I have cracked at least three molars. The crazy thing about each incident—I was not chewing a nut when my tooth made its break known to me. I was eating, respectively, scrambled eggs, bread and couscous. The most recent incident transpired last Saturday evening.

My dentist advised I probably cracked it on harder foods but the sliver of enamel had not separated from the mother lode. Each incident was a crack waiting to be exposed and repaired with a crown or more expensive implant. 

So, Donald, stop fulminating on the deep state conspiracy. Start an immediate investigation into the deep throat, er, deep tooth conspiracy that threatens all Americans, not just those who abuse the office and power of the presidency. 

Cracked Teeth

I’d like to blame AARP for my cracked tooth, but I can’t.

Let me explain. Thursday evening I was leafing through the December 2011/January 2012 issue of AARP The Magazine and came across a nutrition article entitled, “Go Nuts!.” It extolled the virtues of eating various nuts to lower “bad” LDL cholesterol. Almonds, in particular, also were said to reduce insulin resistance, a quality important to someone with borderline high blood sugar levels, as I am.

Friday morning I cracked my tooth on an almond. I can’t blame AARP, however, because almonds have been part of my breakfast regimen for more than 15 years. Almonds, cashews, raisins, red grapes, an apple, a banana, some cheese or Trader Joe’s O’s, with an ample helping of whipped cream—ambrosia of the gods, I call it—have nourished me most mornings.

So you see, it’s not as if I can blame AARP for turning me on to almonds. AARP should have be a little more circumspect in its suggestions, though, considering its age-based membership of 50-plus adults is prone to deteriorating dental work. Perhaps I should have taken a clue from the table of contents teaser copy for the story. It read, “Get Cracking.”

The first time I cracked a tooth on some food was slightly more than 20 years ago. I went to Los Angeles to meet with the president of Vons Supermarkets early one morning at a new concept store, Tiengas, targeted toward the expanding Hispanic community. It was a beautiful store, with lots of food preparation stations, including a tortilla maker in the middle of the store and more fresh food and meat cuts than I’d ever seen (you wouldn’t believe parts of a pig I saw displayed there that I’d never imagined people ate).

Anyway, at the conclusion of the store tour, I was invited upstairs to the manager’s office for some breakfast. As my cholesterol was pretty high back then, I deferred the offer of rancho huevos, essentially scrambled eggs. My host persisted, however, saying it would insult the cook who had come in early just to prepare the breakfast.

On my first bite I felt a crunch. I jumped back asking if the cook had left egg shells in the mix, only to realize I had cracked my tooth on the softest of foods. How embarrassing! How upsetting that I might incur a $550 dental bill for a crown, the going rate at the time.

Talking over my predicament several days later with a friend who headed our company’s human resources department, we agreed I would submit a worker’s compensation claim. After all, the only reason I put the eggs into my mouth was because the Vons president insisted. It was clearly a work-related claim, I reasoned.

The compensation board agreed. I received full reimbursement for the crown.

The same happy result cannot be related about the fate of the Tiengas experiment. Management closed the stores after determining Hispanics preferred shopping in traditional stores with enlarged ethnic offerings rather than their own supermarkets.