Three cheers for The New York Times @NYTimes, which yesterday featured a letter to the Editor by Stephen Gross, New York (shown, right) that offers a succinct response to the newspaper’s recent article  “Feeling Guilty About Not Flossing? Maybe There’s No Need”.

Letter to the Editor as published in The New York Times, August 8, 2016 (Courtesy The New York Times)

In light of the recent flap over flossing, the internationally recognized daily paper creatively corralled “alternative ways to use your cache of tooth-rope.”

Surely any pastry maker with a Pinterest account has made an attempt at cleanly slicing a birthday cake with the slippery stuff, but silencing a dripping faucet, or sewing shut a gunshot wound, well, those potential uses deserve a round of *a-floss*.

Read the full story, where reporter Daniel Victor@bydanielvictor offers a “usefulness score” for each non-dental suggestion: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/health/dental-floss-uses.html?_r=0

Investigate other MacGyver-like methods (sealant tape, garden support, firestarter) for floss at: https://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2014/07/20-uses-dental-floss-dont-involve-teeth.html

Here at thedailyfloss.com, we’re with Phineas T. Barnum, the 19th century American showman and circus owner, who believed there is no such thing as bad publicity.

If a lack of discussion by the U.S. departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture in their Dietary Guidelines for Americans generates a week’s worth of discussion of floss, so be it.

Holding out for the oral health benefits of floss? Three cheers for you, too.
See what the ADA has to say: https://www.mouthhealthy.org/en/az-topics/f/flossing

How do we really feel at TheDailyFloss.com? One image (shown above) says it all.