19

At least around here, in Costa Rica, it is common practice to avoid drinking cold drinks while drinking hot soup. I never questioned this (but didn't really care about it). Apparently it is, well, bad to mix two different-temperature drinks.

Is there any truth to this?

Improve this question
3
  • Where is "here"?
    – Mark Henderson
    Commented Jan 7, 2013 at 4:29
  • 1
    Costa Rica, Central America, in the middle of nowhere XD
    – Saturn
    Commented Jan 7, 2013 at 4:31
  • This piece of wisdom was also passed on to me, in the UK. And just like the answer given below, the reason told to me was "its bad for your teeth"
    – Jamiec ♦
    Commented Jan 7, 2013 at 14:40

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
21

Try putting hot water in a glass, empty it and then pour ice cold water in it. It is very likely it will break. The rapid change in temperature causes non-even contractions of the material and makes it break.

This happens to the enamel in your teeth. Although it does not need to break, since the temperature difference is not so extreme, it may weaken the enamel and make it easier for tooth cavities to form.

Here is a scientific paper which explains it more rigorously

http://jdr.sagepub.com/content/51/2/461.abstract

Abstract as follows:

This paper presents the results of experiments conducted with extracted human and bovine teeth. The teeth were subjected to thermal cycling at temperatures between 140 and 90 F. The results offer conclusive evidence that thermal fracture may be induced by the thermal stresses caused by the temperature cycling. Less than 3,000 thermal cycles cause severe cracking or the propagation of cracks previously existing in the teeth, or both.

Improve this answer
2
  • 10
    I wonder...would the results be as significant if they did a study of the effects on teeth in live subjects instead of on extracted teeth? I know they're compositionally the same, but nature is full of surprises.
    – called2voyage
    Commented Apr 29, 2016 at 19:20
  • 6
    I don't have access to the full text of this paper at the moment. From the abstract, they varied temperature from 90°F to 140°F. Did the damage occur at all temperatures? Because a typical hot soup is going to be nowhere near 140°F when it enters the mouth. Also, the papers that cite this one suggest that the teeth were held at the temperature for at least 50 seconds, whereas a person eating soup would only have the hot liquid against their teeth for a fraction of that time.
    – ESultanik
    Commented Sep 7, 2016 at 12:34

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .