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Thread: What's the best alternative toothpaste you can get in the wild?

  1. #21
    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    .....Yeah, In Alaska, if you don't feed the cat enough...they eat you.....
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  2. #22

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    You have a valid question, it is just irrelevant if you are going to be eating a wild diet. Tooth decay is rampant in white flour cultures because processed white flour, corn syrup and other simple carbs (sugars) are wreaking havoc on our overall health, including our teeth. When you shift from a nutrient poor and calorie rich modern diet to a wild diet that is nutrient rich and carb lean, the flora and fauna that promote tooth decay. If you are committed to healthy oral hygiene in the bush, a primitive plant known as scouring rush or horse tail has enough silica in it to scrub the bluing off a firearm. More gentle and better effect is to rinse with a strong plant tea (decoction) contains tannic acid. This phytochemical is highly astringent and hostile to bacteria. It has been shown to tighten the gums, relieve the pain and expedite the healing of bleeding gums and mouth sores, and kills the destructive flora responsible for tooth decay. Just be sure to rinse and spit. Ingesting tannins in quantity will tan your digestive tract and is considered an anti nutrient. We use a strong tannin teas in pine bark wash basins at the entrance to our latrine areas as well as the entrance to our food prep area. These washes help disrupt the vector chain and are a critical piece to our field hygiene protocols for long term outings.

  3. #23
    Not a Mod finallyME's Avatar
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    Somehow I missed this when the poster was actually around. Anyways...charcoal makes a great toothpaste. Just take a COLD piece out of the fire and crunch it up. Rinse, repeat.
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  4. #24

    Default Just make old school toothpaste.

    Quote Originally Posted by alawsareps View Post
    I'm planning to live in the wild for a year but I'm concern with my teeth... I'm thinking of "What's the best toothpaste you can get in the wild?"

    Which I could use 3 times a day in a year.

    meaning..... LONG TERM USAGE
    So, toothpaste in the old days was something called "Pearlash" or literally, "Pearl Ash". Pearlash is baked potash, which is boiled down lye. It's a hazardous thing to make but with practice it's also very simple.

    INGREDIENTS
    - 2 pots (make these from clay if you don't have any)
    - A watersource
    - The crushed remains of a campfire. (just grind everything down to powder)
    - A fire
    - A kiln or high-temperature oven (optional but highly recommended. If you don't have one, they are relatively simple to build, it just takes some time, rocks, sticks, clay, check out Jas Townsend on youtube or surivival lilly - both have a few ways of building survival ovens. A really good high-temp oven can be seen on Primitive Technology's youtube channel where he builds the tile roofed hut>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P73REgj-3UE )
    - Strainer (could be cloth maybe or some kind of woven structure. Optional)

    1. Take your fire remains, charcoal and all ash, and crush it into a powder.
    2. Sprinkle the remains into a pot of water and mix thoroughly, until you get a "chocolate milk" consistency. You basically want a solution here.
    3. Pour the solution into the second pot, preferably through a shirt or some kind of strainer. What you want is the colored liquid- not the actual powder. Strain and drain until all of the solids are gone.
    4. The remaining liquid is LYE and it's CAUSTIC - So don't F around with it.
    5. Boil the lye down to get a greyish powder. This is potash and has many uses. It should be able to be used as toothpaste very carefully but is sort of halfway to what we want.
    6. Put a pot into a kiln with the potash in it and start the kiln/oven/whatever. You might even be able to do this over a fire if you have a cover to your pot and you get the fire hot enough. You want to bake the potash until it turns "pearly white". This is Pearlash and is basically what people used for baking soda before, well, baking soda. You can verify this in old dental textbooks from the 1800s. Pearlash has many, many other uses such as being used for soap, drain cleaning, glass making, fire extinguishing, a leavening agent, and like a million other things. Very useful powder. (seriously be very very careful with this. If you have a "mommy" or "daddy" then this recipe is not for you.)

  5. #25
    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Hunter63 saying Hey and Welcome.....

    There is a Intro section to say hello to the group at :
    http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...-Introductions

    That was a great first post....Thanks for that.
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  6. #26

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    Try Salvadora persica it is healthy for teeth, you can use it without toothpaste
    My blog: http://www.keepsurviving.com/

  7. #27
    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Hunter63 saying Hey and Welcome......
    As a resident or Wisconsin, USA I don't think I would find Salvadora persica naturally around here.

    Not saying that it isn't a good alternative, just not common in my area.
    As you didn't mention or list where you are from, you may have access to it but most folks in the Midwest probably wont find it easily.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvadora_persica
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  8. #28
    Super Moderator crashdive123's Avatar
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    He's posting from an area that may not have it either......plenty of camels, but...............
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  9. #29
    Senior Member Antonyraison's Avatar
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    Charcoal from the fire of the night before... Used it numerous times.

  10. #30
    Junior Member Tokwan's Avatar
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    Yep...the old Malay traditional toothpaste..wood ash, sort of charcoal, but we use the ash. Simple ash from the fire pit.
    I'm a Gramp who is not computer savvy, give me a slab and the rock ages tablet..I will do fine!

  11. #31
    Senior Member WalkingTree's Avatar
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    I've taken dental assistant school. Don't have that job, cause I couldn't stand to. Too sedentary. Too indoors. But I've taken all of the courses. And was top of my class the whole way, tied with one other student. Straight A's.

    I think that a lot of bushcrafty primitive methods for dental care may be ok...I'm thinking that they're just undeniable ways to clean or be some degree of antibacterial, etc. But I feel like much of it just isn't necessary in terms of what the teeth and gums need. And I feel like it's a lot of trouble using some recipe making some concoction that you might not even need. These things "work", and are safe, sure, but may not be what your teeth even need. I'll explain...

    - Normally, you only need a soft bristle. No medium or firm bristles. What you need to physically clean, and what you can physically brush off...you can do so almost by just looking at it and giving it a dirty look. So anything more than a soft bristle is just overkill. A good perecntage of the problems people visit the dentist for is from overbrushing or being too abrasive in some sense or another, believe it or not. The physical cleaning of the teeth by a brush is the easy part. You really can almost just use your finger or bit of paper towel. Also, forget all those gosh darned brushes with weird handle shapes or bristle cuts or a mix of bristles of different materials, and definitely don't waste your time with any motorized crap - you're not trying to get the paint off of a car, and it's not that hard to do the little you need to do. I myself will get a brush that has the bristles cut at different lengths such that it looks like a wave instead of the old school straight flat cut, but that's as far as I go. By the time that a soft bristle won't do the trick, you have another issue and harder bristles or harsher brushing isn't helping, is just hurting. And that happens just by not cleaning often enough. You don't want to go 24 hours without brushing, maybe 12 hours.

    - Brushing and brushing across the surface of your teeth longer than a few seconds...you're not brushing anything. There's nothing there. Stop it. And don't rub charcoal stuff with grit in it over your teeth either. If you use some of these alternative methods, just do it for about 15 seconds in any area and that's it. But using a brush...going back and forth horizontally with the bristles pointing at your front or back surfaces at a right-angle is a waste of time. You need to do two things. Make strokes up (or down) away from the gums. This does a little between the teeth, and at the same time does what you think you're doing with the horizontal back and forth stuff. Then point the bristles down (or up) towards the gumline, against your front or back surface, and brush horizontally like that...to get into the space between the teeth and gum. The spaces between your gum and teeth are among your biggest problems, not what you can see. Dentists and assistants will tell you either to not do this, or to be careful...because depending on how you do it you'll be poking the end of the bristle into your gum during the stroke each time you change direction, irritating the gums. But that just means that you need to "do it right". This cleaning of the gumline makes a huge difference. A third thing (though I said two) would be to get the chewing surfaces of your molars and premolars that have those nooks and crannies, but a brush can only go so far here anyway.

    - You always hear about flossing. That's because a brush can only go so far, and it's that space between the gum and teeth that's very important, and the spaces between each teeth too. The bristles of a brush just can't get in there very far. I don't even floss though...I waterpik (with a bit of listerine in the water). That's even better, and is way easier instead of screwing around with wrapping string around my fingers and contorting my face and hands every day. Takes forever and still doesn't do as well as waterpiking. Waterpiking is so quick, so easy, and so much more effective. 45 seconds of brushing, 45 seconds of waterpiking...wham bam done.

    - The only other thing I'd worry about from a modern-technology standpoint is fluoride. If you're not out there very long, no worries. If this is a concern because you're going to be out there a really long time...a thing to do is carry fluoride to add to water and swish in your mouth occasionally, or something like that. And that's still just a maybe, I suppose.

    ...ok, so, keeping all of the aforementioned in mind, what does this mean when you're out in the bush without toothpaste, mouthwash, brush, or floss etc? This is what I would suggest:

    - Firstly, clean often. Not doing it regularly is the biggest reason you get most problems in the here and now civilized world. Within an hour or two after a meal, and/or before bedtime (by bushlife lifestyles). Every day. And a swish every morning with warm water that has some leaves in it which are supposed to be a bit antibacterial or freshening...a bush primitive tea.

    - Using perhaps boiled (clean) water, use your (clean) fingers to just physically rub all of your surfaces clean.

    - Make a few toothpick type of thingamajigs out of the right kind of little sticks (pine needles yay), and just get into the spaces between your teeth one at a time. Then gently get into the space between your tooth and gum. Literally dig down into that space, moving through it - but I do mean gently...when I say "dig" into it, I mean at a microscopic scale. Measurable by a millimeter. (by the way, flossing or waterpiking doesn't just clean this area, but it stimulates the gum to pucker up and tighten against the tooth...get more healthy. Periodontal disease is the opposite of this, which is that gap getting bigger, looser, and the gums shrinking away, exposing more tooth...which happens because it's dirty down there and gets no physical stimulation...or too much physical stimulation from overbrushing using a bad brushing technique.) Also pick into those nooks and crannies of the chewing surfaces of your back teeth (another btw - stop forgetting that rear surface behind your back-most teeth).

    - After this simply physical cleaning, have a tea made from foraged leaves or whatever else that brings some degree of antibacterial quality - this step would be a key component to bush dental care. Swish. Do several swishings with different mouthfuls. Make it vigorous, use the muscles in your cheeks, tongue, and lips. Force the water through the gaps between your teeth, both directions, in each area of your mouth, with lots of force. The temperature of the warm water will loosen what needs to be loosened, the force you impart upon the water will get what you couldn't reach with a pick, and the anti-bacterial-whatever will do it's antibacterial thing.

    And that's it. I feel like this is a lot easier while being a lot more effective, considering all of the things we already have to spend time and energy doing out in the bush anyway. This would do the trick, and very well. Without making it any more complicated unnecessarily. On top of that, when foraged and hunted food doesn't have as much sugar and crap in it...you have even less worries - the natural potentially funky stuff that might be in wild foods is taken care of by the antibacterial tea, not messing up the otherwise healthy biome of the inside of your mouth, and by cleaning frequently instead of going very long between cleanings.
    Last edited by WalkingTree; 03-05-2017 at 02:37 PM.
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  12. #32
    Junior Member Tokwan's Avatar
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    Walking Tree...you git me all confused..can you summarize that into 10 sentences..? Na'aahhh just pulling your leg...good explanation though...
    I'm a Gramp who is not computer savvy, give me a slab and the rock ages tablet..I will do fine!

  13. #33
    Senior Member WalkingTree's Avatar
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    One sentence - Don't ever eat or drink anything...that's the best dental care.
    The pessimist complains about the wind;
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    The realist adjusts the sails.

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  14. #34
    Senior Member WalkingTree's Avatar
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    45 seconds of brushing, 45 seconds of waterpiking...wham bam done.
    Correction. I was just guessing, not putting much thought into that part while writing. I timed myself to find out exactly: brushing, waterpiking...about 4 or 4 1/2 minutes total.
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  15. #35

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    A small box of arm and hammer will go a long ways, unless you're ultra limited on what you carry in.
    Last edited by ChuckDT; 05-03-2017 at 01:52 PM.

  16. #36
    Super Moderator crashdive123's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChuckDT View Post
    A small box of arm and hammer will go a long ways, unless you're ultra limited on what you carry in.
    Why not just bring toothpaste?
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  17. #37
    Senior Member randyt's Avatar
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    I've been using powdered black walnut husk these days. Sprinkle it on a wet tooth brush and brush away.
    so the definition of a criminal is someone who breaks the law and you want me to believe that somehow more laws make less criminals?

  18. #38

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    Every day I use baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. This bubbles as I brush and cleanses my teeth very well. I also use a pinch of baking soda on each armpit which works to keep them smelling fresh.

    Store bought toothpaste and deodorant is often made up of chemicals that are not very good for you or the environment.

    For naturally found brushing aids perhaps wood ashes?
    Last edited by MtMoriah; 08-19-2018 at 02:40 PM.
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  19. #39
    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    Actually, wood ash and water makes lye. I'm not certain I'm want to use that on my mouth.

  20. #40

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick View Post
    Actually, wood ash and water makes lye. I'm not certain I'm want to use that on my mouth.
    That's true, but it's not that strong. Probably helps kill bacteria, though.

    To make lye that's strong, you have to use a lot of ash, and a small amount of water that stays in contact with the ash a long time.
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