Do I brush first or eat first in the morning?

Recently, I have been observing the buildup of tartar and stain in patients. It made me wonder, why do some patients get a lot of stain while others dont?

I started to ask if patients with heavy stain and tartar clean their teeth first thing in the morning and almost 99% of the time they don't. Many people think they should eat first and clean their teeth after so they are fresh for the day. 
However, there is a slime layer called the pellicle that develops overnight when the saliva slows down. It becomes a sticky surface that is easily removed with brushing the teeth. If the pellicle layer is present when we eat and drink, everything sticks to it and cleaning the teeth become more difficult.

There is another factor that I consider and if we brush the night before and go to sleep, in the morning there has been about 8-10 hours of not cleaning our mouths out. There is an increase of bacteria production in our mouths as we sleep. So cleaning our mouths before eating makes sense to me.

After asking patients to brush first thing in the morning, I have observed a drastic reduction of staining, plaque and tartar buildup. If you want to feel fresh after eating breakfast, I would recommend mixing a little toothpaste with water and swishing with it or just plain water. If you do the peroxide rinse after brushing, it reduces the sticking of food, so a plain water rinse can wash away food easily.