Most of us aren’t familiar with the ingredients in most conventional toothpastes, let alone the ingredients in their natural alternatives. Natural toothpastes have only recently started to gain popularity and people expressed greater concern for their health and for the environment. We’ve seen the side effects that occur in our body and to our planet when we use artificial products, and we’re more vigilant about preventing damage to ourselves and the world.
That’s how we wound up with natural toothpaste that utilizes alternative ingredients to promote dental health without introducing more chemicals into our mouth and into the world. Coral calcium is one of the core ingredients that Coral Toothpaste uses to keep your teeth clean without damaging your body or the environment we all share.
Tooth Enamel: What is It and What Does It Need?
Taking care of your teeth primarily refers to taking care of your enamel. Your teeth are wrapped in enamel, which is the hardest substance the human body will ever produce. It’s tougher than bone because it’s intended to last a lifetime. There are no living tissues in enamel, meaning that it is incapable of restoring itself if it ever becomes damaged.
Your body cannot internally provide enamel with the resources it needs to repair or regrow. That’s why it’s crucially important to take care of your enamel. When it’s gone, it’s gone. You can only use topical minerals to fortify your enamel, because that’s the sole method your enamel can receive any nutrients.
Your enamel is made of calcium phosphate - a combination of calcium and phosphorus. The best way to take care of your enamel is to continuously provide it a healthy supply of the two minerals it’s made of. These minerals will build up on your teeth, binding to the other calcium and phosphorus already present there.
Does Fluoride Remineralize Our Teeth?
Fluoride does remineralize teeth. Admittedly, it does an excellent job. Fluoride works in conjunction with calcium and phosphorus to crystallize into a substance called fluorapatite. Fluorapatite crystals occur in the wild in places where all three substances naturally exist. They form in stunning shades of pink, teal, and violet. They’re beautiful to look and strong in their structure.
Fluoridated toothpaste works with minerals in your mouth on a smaller scale. It crystallizes to your enamel, preventing or reversing erosion and stopping cavities in their tracks. It’s an amazing thing, but many people find it too good to be true.
Small doses of fluoride are recognized as perfectly safe. In fact, most major health organizations recommend small doses of fluoride to promote dental health. It’s even added to tap water in an effort to prevent tooth erosion in the population. That’s where the idea of “small doses” became a little convoluted.
Think about everything you use tap water for. You drink it. You wash your face and body with it. You use it to brew coffee and tea, or make instant oatmeal. It boils your pasta and vegetables. It helps you make soup or steam dumplings. You just can’t get away from it.
Fluoride is wildly abundant in soil and groundwater. Most of the plants, vegetables, and fruits that you eat will contain some level of fluoride. They’re getting it from the water they’re grown with and the dirt they’re grown in. Some seafood will also contain fluoride depending on how it was raised or where it was caught.
Chances are, you don’t have a shortage of fluoride in your diet. You’re already ingesting a lot of it, and there’s not much you can do to prevent that. Your toothpaste is an added source. Since fluoride intake from other sources cannot effectively be monitored, most people feel safer eliminating added sources of fluoride (like toothpaste or mouthwash) from their daily routines.
That’s why effective alternatives to fluoride, like coral calcium, are increasing in popularity. Your teeth won’t suffer if you remove fluoride from your oral care routine as long as it's replaced by something equally as capable of getting the job done.
The Life Cycle of Coral and the Minerals it Contains
Coral itself isn’t an animal or organism. It is a collection of a bunch of small organisms called coral polyps that group together for protection. These polyps attach themselves to rocks or other dead polyps by secreting limestone, a hard calcium carbonate based substance. The final resulting structure of banded and bonded polyps creates the final structure that we refer to as coral.
Coral polyps survive by creating a symbiotic relationship between themselves - that’s what the banding together is all about. Coral polyps have very small thread-like appendages they use to scavenge food as it passes by. Polyps have small mouths and rudimentary digestive systems, but despite their tiny size, they process food just like any other animal would.
The diet of a coral polyp is very rich in a vast array of minerals because it consumes things like algae and small organisms called zooplankton that eat other varieties of algae. Algae is rich in calcium, magnesium, iodine, and potassium. These minerals enrich the coral polyps and help it form its exoskeleton and bonding substance of calcium carbonate.
Rooted coral does not move and will spend its entire life in one spot. Eventually, coral dies. The key word is eventually. Some species of coral can live for as long as 4,000 years before dying off and becoming fossilized. There is currently ancient coral living on our oceans, and it’s been thriving since civilization first began in Mesopotamia. It almost seems insane to entertain, but some coral is twice as old as the bible.
Some factors, like environmental pollution and global warming, can lead to the premature death of coral. About 50% of the coral in the ocean is dead. Over time, it will fossilize. Currents and storms may cause dead coral to dislodge from its original structure and wash ashore. Dead coral, or fossilized coral, still contains all of the minerals it accumulated over its lifetime.
How is Coral Sustainably Harvested?
It’s true that coral reefs are dying off at a rapid rate, and it may sound alarming that we use coral as an active ingredient in our toothpaste. As much as we’re glad to find a purpose for all coral that is no longer living, we’re also happy to see healthy, active, thriving coral reefs. We care about the planet and we understand the effects that pollution and global warming have on the environment.
We love the ocean and all species of marine life, and part of our mission to protect the environment from pollutants is to create an environmentally friendly formula with no artificial ingredients. We’ve also created a line of sustainable bamboo toothbrushes that will decompose over time, keeping landfills free from plastic that will sit for thousands of years before it begins to degrade.
Coral Toothpaste exclusively utilizes eco safe coral in all of our products. Eco safe coral can be sustainably harvested from above-sea fossilized coral.. Live and healthy active reefs need not be disturbed for the material to be harvested, and the ecosystem isn’t impacted when fossilized coral that has completed its lifespan is removed from the environment.
What Purpose Does Coral Calcium Serve in Toothpaste?
Coral calcium acts as the primary remineralizing ingredient in our toothpaste, and it also acts as the abrasive. The remineralizing process works similarly to fluoride. Coral calcium is applied to the teeth with your toothbrush. Once it’s in your mouth, the calcium, phosphorus, and more than 70 other trace minerals get to work on fortifying your enamel.
Since coral calcium works to rebalance the mouth’s natural PH (along with ingredients like xylitol), it creates the perfect environment for mineral utilization. This ensures that the remineralization process will work the way it’s intended.
Coral calcium also acts as an abrasive agent in toothpaste. All toothpastes, even gentle toothpastes, require some kind of abrasive ingredient to remove tartar, plaque, and surface stains from the teeth. Coral calcium is slightly gritty, but that grit is safe and necessary as long as it falls within the ADA’s parameters.
The American Dental Association uses something called the RDA scale, or Relative Dental Abrasivity scale, to rank toothpastes according to how abrasive they are. Anything at or below 70 is considered safe. Our Coral Nano Foam toothpaste for sensitive teeth has an RDA score of 21.5 making it an extremely safe and gentle alternative to conventional toothpaste.
Coral calcium can help to keep your teeth clean and strong. Although it’s certainly an unconventional ingredient, it’s undoubtedly effective. Coral calcium has been tested for safety and efficiency, and it meets all the marks.
Coral calcium serves as a necessary alternative to fluoride, making it the perfect option for people looking to remove the controversial mineral from their dental care routine. We take pride in our eco safe and sustainably harvested coral, and we care about the environment just as much as you do.
Source 1 - hardness of enamel
Source 2 - fluoride in groundwater
Source 3 - coral lifespan