Area Dentist vs. Willy Wonka: A Fight to the Death

By Alicia Dorr in Miscellaneous on Oct 30, 2007 7:10PM

It's almost Halloween, and a dentist in Wilmette is out to ruin the festivities for kids with health-conscious parents by telling everyone just how bad candy is for your teeth.

Dr. Dino Mantis, DDS, gave some general specifics about types of candy, rating them on a scale of 1 to 10 on how bad they are for your teeth. (He already peddled his rating system to the Trib.) The world's amazing and seemingly limitless supply of candy has been conveniently pared down to five types by Dr. Mantis: taffy, hard candy, peanut butter cups, candy-covered chocolate and sugar sticks.

The order we just listed them in is the order from worst to best. We can imagine why taffy is bad for your teeth, but we were a little surprised that eating pure sugar was the best (because they are poured on the tongue and generally swallowed quickly, apparently).

While he does rate candy-covered chocolate, we think it's a little weird that he didn't rate just, you know, chocolate. A few other staples left off the list: fun-size candy bars, gummy worms (and all other gummy varieties), those non-descript cheapo candies wrapped in black and orange wax paper and apples with razors in them. Oh, and toothbrushes. There's always somebody handing those out.

Image via mako.cc.