Numerous studies published in The Lancet over the years show that fluoride when ingested damages your brain and lowers your IQ. One of the articles states very matter-of-factly that fluoride is "known to cause developmental neurotoxicity in human beings" (screenshot below). That's why almost every toothpaste you've ever used carries the warning, "do not swallow." Here are the two toothpastes I and my family were using up until a little while ago:

It's so annoying that even the Kid's Crest toothpaste says on the back Keep out of reach of children under 6 yrs. of age. And thanks for the helpful advice, "If more than used for brushing is accidentally swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away." Why are you selling me this candy-flavored poisonous crap? I feel so stupid for trying to force my kids to brush with this brain-damaging industrial waste chemical twice a day for so many years. Thankfully, my kids almost never listened to me about brushing!

They say coating your teeth in poisonous stupefying fluoride makes it a lot less likely that microbes will bore holes in your teeth and cause cavities. So what! Give me back my brain cells, you can have a few of my teeth! A Harvard study in 2012, when studying the effects of fluoridated water, found that "children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas." Harvard's press release at the time, announcing the report, states unequivocally:

The average loss in IQ was reported as a standardized weighted mean difference of 0.45, which would be approximately equivalent to seven IQ points for commonly used IQ scores with a standard deviation of 15.

The report is extremely damning, yet here we are 6 years later still drinking fluoride in our water and religiously coating our teeth with it every morning and every night. Have any of us ever called Poison Control because we swallowed too much toothpaste?

So what do we do about it?

I, for one, have switched my whole family to "no fluoride" toothpastes. You should too. It may be too late to get back those seven points of IQ that we lost in our childhoods, but at least we can stop contributing to further decline and can rescue our kids.

I've tried four new toothpastes so far, all of them not bad, and one of them really, really, really nice. I think it's the one I'm going to use the rest of my life. Here are Amazon links to each of them (full disclosure, I'll take a few pennies from Amazon in referral fees if you buy through these links, but I have no relationship with any of these companies other than the fact that I bought their product on Amazon):

• Doctor Ginger's Fluoride Free Coconut Oil Pulling Toothpaste -- This is the one I like the best. It is not too sweet, tastes deliciously coconutty (I love coconut!) with a hint of mint, and actually has written on the packaging these never-before-seen-on-a-toothpaste-tube words: "Swallow if you like, it won't hurt you one bit."

• Himalaya Neem and Pomegranate Fluoride-Free Natural Toothpaste -- This is my second best, and I will probably use it also for a long time. Of the four reviewed here, it performs the most like the evil fluoridated pastes we're used to, in both foaminess and taste. If you don't like coconut, get this.

• Hello Oral Care Kids Fluoride Free Toothpaste, Natural Watermelon -- This one is too sweet for me, but the kids are okay with it, so that's good. Actually, one of them prefers Doctor Ginger's instead, so that's even better.

• BlackMagic Activated Charcoal Toothpaste with Teeth Whitening Carbon Coco & Coconut Oil -- This one is worth trying just for the experience. It is charcoal black and very different from "normal" toothpastes. I'm okay with it, but nobody else in the family will give it a second chance.

Here's a photo of them all on my counter:

It's too early to tell if I'm all of a sudden going to start getting lots of cavities now that I've kicked fluoride out of my life (stopped drinking tap water too). But all four of these toothpastes definitely leave my mouth feeling clean and fresh.