On the Malady of Mouth Noises

My first post, regretfully, is on an unfortunate, ugly, sticky subject. Yet, it is a subject that must be addressed if one is serious about VO work:
MOUTH NOISES.
Also known as clicks, pops, smacks, and pains-in-engineers-asses.
Some of you may have never noticed these noises before, or the lack of them in any given piece of audio, or rather, you may think you not have noticed. But if a recording is redolent with smacky, poppy, sticky noise sounds, it can become a distraction, sometimes even an irritation.
First, it's good to know what causes these bothersome sounds, so that voice talent can better know how to diminish them. What this does is save engineers hours of editing time. Imagine having to use your editing program to search for the exact nanosecond between each work or utterance where an annoying SMACK happens... anyway, I digress.
What's actually causing these sounds is dry mouth. Dry mouth, that is, producing bubbles in the mouth, the bubbles, when the mouth is in motion, pop, and the result is the dreaded mouth noise upon which this entire entry is based.
Sooo.
What can you (or anyone) do about this situation?
Well, as is the answer with so many other things to do with health and the voice, it all comes down to the big H20, and the basic need to hydrate. Dry mouth can be caused by many things, ranging from medication to excessive caffeine intake, but can, of course, be remedied by drinking plenty of water. And by plenty, I mean about 40 - 70 ounces a day, not a glass here or there.
For a quick fix, you can take a few bites of a green apple. Now, I don't really know how this works, but I've read that it has something to do with balancing the PH in the mouth. And related to that, you can try a product such as Biotene Oral Balence, which works well in a pinch, but, of course, is no substitute for the good 'ol standby, WATER.

As a voice artist, or just a "regular joe or joanne", it's a good sign when your mouth, in general, is not making poppy, smacky noises. You need to be hydrated. Your cells need to be hydrated. It's kinda... how they function and such. So, listen while you talk, just in everyday life, and check if your mouth is making a lot of excess noise. If it is, you might want to look into drinking more water, and thinking about if you're a chronic dry mouth sufferer. I'm of the opinion that dehydration, along with sugar consumption, are becoming two of the largest nutritional plagues of the modern age. If everybody dropped their sugar intake, and upped their protein and water intake, I think not only our vocal health, but our health in general, would improve.

Didn't mean to rant, but after having just gone through two audiobook narration sessions with very bad dry mouth, I wanted to make sure this was the first topic I tackled on this blog!

luvz!
Chris