Today we would like to answer the burning question:
Why does my morning orange juice taste disgusting if I washed my teeth before?
It’s a cool little sciency trick, and it’s all down to one component in traditional toothpastes: SLS, or Sodium Lauryl Sulfate.
SLS is an ingredient that you will find in a lot of shower gels, shampoos and toothpastes: this surfactant creates a nice foam, cleanses well and is cheap. It’s not great on the microbiome though, so we don’t use any in Gallinée.
When used in toothpaste it makes it foam, but it also messes for a while with the taste receptors on your tongue. As its job is to lift fat particles, it will destroy some phospholipids that usually cover and usually protect the bitterness receptors. The results? Everything is going to taste more bitter.
And as if it wasn’t enough, it is also suppressing the sweetness receptors. So suddenly your sweet orange juice with a light background of bitterness taste not sweet and extra bitter. Urg.
This also works for grapefruit juice.
The solution?
Chose a toothpaste without SLS. You will usually find them in the sensitive teeth section, or in the natural toothpaste section.
At Gallinée the first thing we tried when we got our toothpaste from the lab was to try it with orange juice (The team is both nerdy and very brave), and we are very happy to report that Orange Juice tastes absolutely perfect! We knew it anyway because of the lack of SLS, but it was a great reason to raise a glass to the team!
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