It’s common advice from all the dentists and hygienists I’ve ever seen, and it’s not something that comes up in conversation among my friends here but from pers

It’s common advice from all the dentists and hygienists I’ve ever seen, and it’s not something that comes up in conversation among my friends here but from personal experience I wanna say all or most of my partners I’ve ever seen brush their teeth they do the same. If it helps, this is in Europe, so we (as in dentists here) may have differing guidelines as you. From what I know, the gist is that fluoride is mineralized into enamel which strengthens it (not sure if this is the correct phrasing). Whatever the correct phrase is, it works by direct prolonged contact. Not rinsing is a way to guarantee this contact, but even if you do there’s still fluoride in your saliva to do some good. I imagine the taste depends on your toothpaste. I use a plain one (Elmex) that doesn’t really have a taste, and the taste goes away fast enough that I don’t notice it. As far as swallowing goes, not really. Most of it gets spat out. Besides, (some) astronauts in space just swallow it all instead of spitting cause it’s cleaner :) https://www.quora.com/International-Space-Station-Is-it-ok-to-swallow-toothpaste-as-Chris-Hadfield-does-in-this-video https://www.quora.com/International-Space-Station-Is-it-ok-t... Yes I know fluoride can be toxic but the amount you’d swallow (a small pea sized dab is all you need, all those pictures of the entire brush covered by toothpaste is advertisement to get you to think you need that much) is probably not going to have any effect.