the.com/fluoride
The mineral we put in water to bribe your teeth into behaving.
means A natural mineral compound (a salt of fluorine) added in tiny amounts to water or toothpaste to strengthen tooth enamel and fight decay.
from Comes from 'fluorine,' which takes its name from fluorspar (calcium fluoride), the mineral in which it was first identified — and fluorspar itself is named from Latin 'fluere,' meaning 'to flow,' because miners used it as a flux to make other minerals melt and flow more easily in smelting. So the word's deepest root is literally about making things flow — a tidy coincidence for a mineral that now flows through your tap water.
- origin story
- discovered after Colorado town had oddly cavity-proof teeth
- dose matters
- too much causes staining, called fluorosis
- conspiracy magnet
- 1950s fear campaigns called it a communist plot
- natural source
- already present in tea, fish, and groundwater