Eating the Lemon After Drinking Lemon Water

I feel sorry for the lemon after finishing my lemon water dosage for the day--to the point I sometime end up eating it.

I've been raised by good parents that taught me not to discard food that is edible, and I've been careful not to do that ever since I was a very young age.

But I've been told that eating lemon directly could harm my teeth's enamel.

Should I stop or is it safe to do that after using the lemon in lemon water?

ANSWER:

I appreciate your intent to not waste food because I tend to have the same mentality.

It is true that eating lemons directly can harm tooth enamel because of the citric acid.

However, if you juice the lemon first, I suspect that most of the citric acid will be in the lemon juice rather than in the remaining parts of the fruit. You should be able to tell after eating the remaining lemon how much acidity there is. It may change how the surface of your teeth feel, often kind of dry, gritty or sensitive.

By the way, other beverages such as coffee, tea, and sodas are also highly acidic and will also harm tooth enamel.

Whether eating lemons will harm your teeth or not also depends to a certain extent on how strong your teeth are. But even if your teeth are strong, if ingested daily, the citric acid would most likely wear down the enamel over time.

Bottom line is that I would not eat the remaining part of the juiced lemon every day. In fact, I personally do not eat them at all except if I add the whole lemon to my Vitamix juicer when making a vegetable or super food smoothie.

If you have a blender or juicer, you could put the remaining part of the lemon into the juicer. That would be the optimal solution because there are many beneficial nutrients in the entire lemon.

You can read about some of the additional benefits of the lemon rind zest and pith here.

P.S. If you continue to eat the lemons, I recommend you swish your mouth with a pinch of baking soda in filtered water (which is slightly alkaline) after eating the lemon to help neutralize any acid left on your teeth.