Letters: Fluoride free water the best solution

Fluoridation of water is not always the answer to stronger teeth, says a reader.

I have known Ross Forbes for 55 years, and am familiar with his accurate, thorough research methods on subjects like fluoridation of drinking water.

Surely supplying tamariki with healthy food and toothbrushes, and knocking back the sugar and artificially-coloured sweet drinks would be an easier answer.

Some pregnant mothers need to just grow up and knock off the booze and eat for their babies. Some fathers need to man up and plant a vege garden, fruit trees, and shell out for healthy tucker instead of killing their brain cells and clogging arteries eating rubbish food and swilling waipiro.

Some early Pakeha got Maori ancestors drinking rubbish fire water and took over the land.
They didn't care about Maori or hard-working, poor, honest Pakeha. They exploited their own race as well as Maori.

The tupuna didn't have tooth decay. Many Pakeha settlers ended up with no teeth or false choppers.

They introduced Maori to sugar and fattening dishes, as well as a great variety of new, healthy foods.

Being brought up on a rural orchard during the Great Depression meant healthy food from our own garden, and kaimoana from the nearby beach, eggs and rabbit pie. No lollies, biscuits, fizz drinks, and sometimes only bread and dripping sandwiches, plus an apple for school lunches.

I met an old school mate from 1937 recently, and guess what? Our teeth were a bit battered but we both still had most of our own to chomp up our food.

HAMIORA
Kerikeri