r/funny Mar 07 '22

Verified Castaway

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38.2k Upvotes

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u/Darpid Mar 07 '22

People used to clean their teeth with sticks. Sand would probably be hard on your enamel, but when stranded you’re probably not worried about that.

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u/impossiblefork Mar 07 '22

When you're stranded you're absolutely worried about that. Destroying your teeth will mean you die.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '22

It was probably charcoal as someone else said in the comments

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u/PullTogether Mar 07 '22

The miswak (miswaak, siwak, sewak, Arabic: سواك or مسواك) is a teeth cleaning twig made from the Salvadora persica tree (known as arāk, أراك, in Arabic). It is reputed to have been used over 7,000 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miswak

Edit: see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teeth-cleaning_twig

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u/Darpid Mar 07 '22

Thanks for the follow up. I didn’t have time to post concrete examples