So….. I dont want to scare you guys by actually showing you my teeth— but here they are. In their spectacularly small glory. And they’re whiter than they were last month—- without a crap ton of scary chemicals or spending a lot of money or anything like that. I mean, I do brush and floss daily— so that helps of course, but even that doesn’t improve the whiteness of your (my) teeth all that much, ya know? But you know what does? Activated charcoal! I actually was advised to take activated charcoal by my GI doctor– (for GI issues, duh) and then I found some at a spa– but within a loofa! For face scrubbing and I’m like, “well what else can this black powdery magic do?” Apparently it whitens the crap out of your teeth!

Activated charcoal has been known in the medical community/GI world for a long, long time now for poison overdoses and food poisoning. It absorbs or adsorbs (I’m not sure) ingested toxins, keeping your body safe. You can definitely search and read online– I won’t give you a whole lesson on it, but I just want you to know, it is safe to ingest– which obviously makes it super safe to clean and whiten your teeth with!

It’s like, the super most attractive thing ever, right? 



I recommend buying some activated charcoal in powder form, mixing with a touch of filtered water until the powder becomes pasty. Dip your brush in the paste and brush, brush, brush to have the charcoal pull the grime off your teeth— aka instantly whiten your teeth! And that’s it! You can do it as often as you’d like– if you’re using tooth powder instead of toothpaste at home, you can always add a bit of the charcoal to the mix. It is super messy, but thankfully it wipes clean super easy! Just brush, rinse, floss, and go!

Tada! A super easy, natural teeth whitener πŸ™‚

ps. if/when purchasing, keep in mind it can be bought in powder and capsule form. Either is fine. If you buy it in capsule form, you can always just open up a few tubes and pour into small bowl or jar. OR just buy it in powder form and skip that step πŸ™‚

7 Comments

  1. I've been curious about trying this! I think it's worth a shot, especially since the activated charcoal powder is so cheap!

  2. I've heard that it can affect the natural bacteria in our mouth, which might have a negative effect on the gut. Do you know anything about that?

    PS.,I love your cookbook so much!! I thought I had discovered what I needed to in vegan cooking, but you have a slightly different take on everything, which is so inspiring and everything I make now is just a little more tasty due to some techniques and combinations of vegs and spices. Had some meat and cheese-lovers for dinner yesterday who thought the vegan pizza was much better than the one we made with mozzarella!

    • you know, it totally and probably can affect the bacteria in your mouth– but so can just about anything— even making out or sharing food! I dont think that using it would be any worse than eating garlic or using oregano oil from time to time. But I'm not a doctor or scientist– but to be completely honest— they wouldn't know either πŸ˜‰

      And thank you thank you! πŸ™‚

  3. Yay!! I've been hoping for YEARS to find a natural way to whiten my teeth.. All the baking soda concoctions kind of scare me re:teeth enamel. This just might be genius. I cannot wait to try it. Thank you!! Xo

    • I'm hoping to find more time to research oral health— so far from what I've found, I'm seeing more and more than a vegan diet really isn't the best for teeth— it's typically way too high in phytic-acid, womp. And the bacteria in your mouth make a huge difference, but my teeth have always been crummy, from day one, womp again. But the best thing for me was switching to an electric tooth brush this year– it's helped a lot. and using this has brightened them a lot, yay.