14 DAY TRIAL // If you're one of those people who enjoy a healthy breakfast, you are probably well aware of the fact that drinking orange juice shortly after having brushed your teeth is a very bad idea.
Still, chances are that you don't know how and why toothpaste makes orange juice taste bitter rather than sweet. Well, wonder no more. Just have a look at the video below and get ready to learn the scientific explanation for this little mystery.
Long story short, it appears that toothpaste comprises four chief ingredients: water, abrasives, fluoride and detergent. More often than not, the detergent that goes into making toothpaste is sodium lauryl sulfate.
Experiments carried out in laboratory conditions indicate that, when coming into contact with our tongue, sodium lauryl sulfate affects our sweetness receptors. In a nutshell, it suppresses them.
Besides, it destroys other compounds, i.e. phospholipids, that act as bitterness inhibitors. In doing so, the sodium lauryl sulfate impairs our ability to detect sweetness and instead makes it really easy for our tongue to pick up on all things bitter.
Interestingly enough, it appears that this detergent that is added to toothpaste to encourage the formation of bubbles can also be found in dozens of other household products such as shaving foam. Still, it's best to stick to cleaning one's chompers using toothpaste alone.
