Can you eat normally with veneers?
Yes. Two exceptions, and both of them apply to natural front teeth too: do not bite ice, and do not use your teeth as tools.
Steak, apples, corn, crusty bread are all fine. Bonded porcelain behaves like enamel under normal chewing.
No restrictions
Once the final porcelain is bonded, you eat the way you always did.
Impact, not chewing
Ice, olive pits, popcorn kernels, and packaging.
What actually breaks porcelain
- Ice. The single most common way a veneer chips.
- Anything hard and unexpected. An olive pit, a popcorn kernel, a small bone.
- Opening things. Bottles, packaging, tags, fingernails.
- Grinding at night, which is slow rather than sudden, and does more damage over a decade than any meal.
The week with temporaries is different
Temporaries are held on with a deliberately weak cement so they come off cleanly later. Treat them gently. Soft food, nothing sticky, and chew on the back teeth. If one comes off, keep it and call the office. It goes straight back on.
Coffee, red wine, turmeric
Porcelain does not stain the way enamel does, so the veneers themselves hold their color. Your natural teeth still stain normally, and that is the part that shifts a matched smile out of match over a few years.
If you grind, wear the guard. That protects the result more than any food rule on this page.
Written by Dr. Peter Bonifatto, DMD, a general dentist in Las Vegas whose practice focuses on cosmetic and restorative work. General information, not a diagnosis. What your own teeth need is decided at an exam, with x-rays.
Ask about your own teeth.
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