Pancake Day: Which Toppings Are Best and Worst For Your Teeth?

With pancake day around the corner, it’s time to start stocking up on your favourite toppings.

While this is a day to indulge in sweet treats, it’s important to remember the impact sugar can have on your oral health.

With this in mind, experts at Express Dentist sought to find out which are the best and worst toppings for your teeth.

To do so they gathered a list of the most popular pancake toppings and looked at the sugar content per 100 grams of each.

Most damaging toppings

The worst pancake topping for your teeth is a British favourite, fruit jam, with a whopping 69g of sugar per 100g — 130% above the advised daily sugar intake of 30g for an adult.

Second place is taken by treacle, a sticky dark syrup made from partly refined sugar which contains 67g of sugar per 100g — 124% higher than the recommended daily sugar intake.

Closely following, in third place we find caramel with 66g of sugar/100g  – 120% over the advised daily sugar intake.

The beloved classics, maple syrup and Nutella fall in fourth and fifth place with 61g and 54g of sugar per 100g respectively.

If you prefer a 50/50 split of lemon and sugar as your pancake topping, you should expect 51g of sugar per 100g of content.

Least damaging toppings

The least damaging pancake topping for your teeth is whipped cream, containing only 3g of sugar/100 g of whipped cream - 90% lower than the recommended daily intake.

The second least damaging pancake topping is strawberries and cream with only 5g of sugar per 100g of topping.

Banana is also considered a healthy pancake topping with only 18g of sugar per 100g of banana – this is 70% less than the advised daily intake of sugar.

With only 22g of sugar per 100g of topping, vanilla ice cream is also one of the least damaging pancake toppings for your teeth.