Abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of different foods on the flow rate of saliva in five-year-old children.
The foods selected were cookies, pickled radish, sausage, mash potatos, apples, and steamed rice. The volume of saliva secreted by 10 subjects of each gender was determined by subtracting the initial weight of the food from that of the food bolus after the subjects had chewed it normally and then spat it out into a weighed container, instead of swallowing.
Mean chewing times per 10 g of food were highest with cookies (124.2±100sec. ) and lowest with rice (32.6±19.9sec. ), and these were inversely related to the initial water content of the foods (r= -0.85, p<0.05). There were no differences in salivary flow rates due to gender and the mean flow rates of six different foods was 3.6±2.7ml/min (highest with cookies and lowest with rice). The mean percentage of the foods wihch were either inadvertently swallowed or remained stuck to the teeth or oral mucosa were calculated to be 13.7±6.4, and the salivary flow rates which were obtained in this study seemed to be a slight estimation of the actual flow rates.
