We are happy to announce that we are sponsoring the West Asheville Tailgate Market this year! It is so important to support the local food scene whenever you can! Get out there and buy from our local farmers at the farmers market…or you can at least order local foods from someplace like Mother Earth Produce and have them deliver the food straight to your house!

Dr. Gottfried and Dr. Mann have been very involved in the local food movement. Dr. Gottfried was born and raised on a farm in North Dakota so this farming thing is second nature to him. This year he has started raising heritage chickens on The Farm. He built pretty much the coolest chicken coop you have ever seen that is designed after an old country church. They have 200 baby Barred Plymouth Rock Chickens happily cruising around the new chicken coop!

Dr. Mann and her husband Jon have been growing raspberries for the past couple years on their farm in Waynesville. They have been selling to a local farm to table restaurant in the Highlands/Cashiers area. This year they have planted more blackberries, blueberries, figs, cherries, honeyberries, marionberries, and hazelnut trees! It’s going to be a very busy picking season this year because this will be the first year that all 400 raspberry plants will be mature.

Berries from Johnny and Haley Mann’s Farm

Diet Soda not only causes a ton of other health issues including obesity and kidney function issues…it also has terrible side effects on your teeth.  So many people think that they are making a healthy choice by picking diet soda, but in reality it has serious side effects of it’s own.  It seems like there is an epidemic of diet soda drinking in Asheville.  I can tell you that soda consumption is single handedly causing a large percentage of the dental disease we see in our practice.

“With a pH of 3.2, diet soda is very acidic. (As a point of reference, the pH of battery acid is 1. Water is 7.) The acid is what readily dissolves enamel, and just because a soda is diet doesn’t make it acid-light. Adults who drink three or more sodas a day have worse dental health, says a University of Michigan analysis of dental checkup data. Soda drinkers had far greater decay, more missing teeth, and more fillings.” says Today Health.

Read the rest of the article in the link below about the other negative effects consuming diet soda can have on your health.

http://todayhealth.today.com/_news/2012/10/19/14543969-diet-soda-is-doing-these-7-awful-things-to-your-body

Meanwhile, lets all make an effort to drink more water!!!!  Not only is water free, but it will save you thousands of dollars in dental work and other health issues!!!!

One of the topics that we are very passionate about is cosmetics in a dental practice. While we provide all cosmetic services needed and requested, we have a particular interest in being conservative in our techniques. Often cosmetic goals can be achieved without damaging the natural tooth with a bur. Whenever this is possible, we believe that this has the least amount of negative impact on the health of the teeth. Some examples of treatments that can help you achieve your cosmetic goals but are considered minimally invasive cosmetic dentistry are whitening, orthodontics, and direct bonding.  Here are some cases where we were able to leave the natural teeth in tact and only added composite material to the teeth in a way that is totally reversible.  Although we are comfortable with doing veneers in extreme cases, we find that being conservative in our technique as often as possible is the best for the patients and their teeth in the long run.

This seems a little far fetched to be a good idea, but I thought it was interesting never-the-less! Scientists at Tufts and Princeton have come up with a sensor that goes on your tooth like a temporary tattoo that you can replace daily. It will alert you if you have plaque built up on your tooth so that you know it’s time to go brush your teeth. From the dentist perspective…it’s hard enough to talk a very detail oriented, health conscious patient to brush and floss their teeth daily, let alone to have them place a sensor on their tooth at the beginning of every day! It’s an interesting concept though, so I will give it to them for their creativity. Here is a link to read more about their project on NY Times health page.
You can also read more about it if you click HERE.