Beware: Pine Nuts May Temporarily Destroy Your Sense Of Taste
Britain's Daily Mail warns that consumers of chinese pine nuts may experience a "foul, metallic taste" for up to two weeks "making practically all food and drink unpalatable." The untreatable ailment is known as pine mouth, and it's puzzling both doctors and consumers alike.
I, too, fell foul of the metal mouth syndrome after eating a few handfuls of pine nuts bought from a supermarket.
Though I regained my taste after eight days, the only thing I could drink during that time was water, and the only food that was bearable was salad leaves smothered in strong balsamic vinegar. Drinking wine was like swallowing liquid metal.
Most worryingly of all, neither I nor my GP had the slightest idea what was wrong with me.
[...]
Kristin Donnelly, editor of online magazine Food & Wine, had the same problem. 'No matter what I tasted, there was a medicinal flavour at the back of my throat,' she says.
Trader Joe's acknowledged the problem in response to one consumer's complaint, writing:
Thank you for your feedback. We would like to extend our apologies for this unpleasant experience. We are aware this has been occurring more frequently with the batch of Pine Nuts we currently have available. This is an all natural occurrence and poses absolutely no health risk, but may linger for a day or so, or possible a couple weeks.This is not just an occurrence with Trader Joe's brand or source, and not everyone reacts to the natural pine oils like this. Unfortunately, there are no quick remedies or preventive measure we can take to ensure it doesn't happen again, and there also isn't a way to determine if this may occur with future batches.
I also wanted to make sure you are aware of our "Product Guarantee." If you are dissatisfied with any product purchased in our stores, you can take it back for an exchange or full refund. We stand behind our motto, "We tried it! We liked it! If you don't, bring it back for a full refund, no questions asked."
Afflicted consumers have tried everything from drinking liquid aloe vera to taking activated charcoal tablets, but nothing seems to help. Doctors say that the pine nuts aren't a health risk, but that's little comfort to consumers who can no longer enjoy their food.
Pine mouth puzzle: Why do these nuts leave you with a bitter taste? [Daily Mail]
pine nuts ,origin and the bitter taste they leave in your mouth [Sainsbury's]
(Photo: melissa rudick photography)
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Comments:
Taste buds are reacting to a chemical that the pine nuts contain - a chemical whose purpose is to prevent people from eating the nuts in large quantities....because they're so damn expensive.
rpm773
Scientician
I can see it now: NEW! All-Natural Diet Pill! Contains essence of pine nuts!
The pine nuts, like any other Chinese export, gets dipped in the lead pool before the cargo is allowed to be loaded. It's the law.
Sounds like clinical wuss-mouth to me.
That's right, I'm blaming the OP's taste buds for this.
Fat Kid Protip: If you're eating something and it makes things taste horrible, either don't eat it, or you're a fat kid.
I'm a fat kid. No problem with pine nuts here.
Well, now I have another way to trim our food budget! On the other hand, if it will result in some weight loss, I guess I could eat just a few ...
Oooh. I'm going to take a handful of these every time I have to go down fast food lane on my way home from work :D
"Afflicted consumers have tried everything from drinking liquid aloe vera to taking activated charcoal tablets"
Maybe they forgot to shake a dead chicken at their tongue, sounds more likely to work than either of those 2 obviously home-made remedies
Bah. Nothing to see here. Now is the time for pinyon-afflicted consumers to do what they've always wanted to do, but were afraid.
1) Everclear and Nyquil. 'Nuff said.
2) Natto
3) Something about steam from Cleveland.
Everybody just move along...
I had this happen with a calcium supplement once. It made everything taste like licking a toaster. I decided osteoperosis was the better option it was so nasty.
@guroth: Activated charcoal, okay, although that helps the stomach, not the taste buds, but ... drinking ... aloe ... vera ...? EWWWWW.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): It's actually pretty tasteless, but to those who are thinking of trying it, beware, it has a strong laxative effect
Chinese? Well that is the problem right there.
Same thing happened to me when I was taking Methotrexate
When we taste, our taste buds recognize chemical characteristics. Sweet = reducing sugar (glucose, either alone or bonded with some other sugar). Salty = positive ions (like sodium, potassium). Sour = acids (lemon juice, vinegar). Bitter = bases (most Westerners don't eat a lot of bitter foods, but in Eastern cuisine many bitter vegetables are used to add other flavor notes. The best example of bitter is coffee or unsweetened cocoa). Pungent or spicy = capsaicin (peppers and other plant-based irritants). Savory or umami = glutamate (an amino acid that our tongues uses to let us know that we're eating something high in protein).
So, it's all chemicals, great. How does this help me get the bitter or metallic taste out of my mouth?
Well, we can use chemistry to do that. A bitter or soapy taste would suggest rancidity. Fats can oxidize in light or heat and go rancid. This can occur in filtered oils in 8 months, unfiltered oils in 12 months and in nuts in anywhere from 6-12 months, depending on the oil content. So, if a rancid pine nut oil (a triglyceride for those of you using google scholar) is strongly bound to your taste buds, replace it with another oil. Rinse your mouth with virgin olive oil every few hours and then spit it out. The fresh oil should help to remove the yucky taste as it solubilizes the rancid triglycerides.
What if the taste is metallic? Well, metallic tastes come from metal ions like copper, iron, zinc and sometimes calcium (but for different reasons). Pregnant women and people on chemotherapy often experience dysgeusia, which is a long-term metallic flavor associated with all foods. For pregnant women, its hormonal; for chemo patients, its the medicine.
Now, there aren't chemotherapy drugs in your pine nuts. But there might be higher concentrations of metal than your used to. If there is a lot of iron or copper, some of the friendly bacteria in your mouth might grab onto it for later use. Then, every time you eat something, there's still that metal flavor in your saliva. It could also be zinc, which actually increases your sense of taste temporarily. My advice to get rid of this taste comes from a pregnancy treatment for dysgeusia: rinse with warm salt water 3X per day, and focus on oral hygiene for a few days. Floss really well, then brush with a paste made from baking soda. This will increase the pH of your mouth, and reduce the bacterial population.
The bottom line is, the nuts are either rancid (if they smell stale, they are stale) or contain more metal than pine nuts that you are used to. This could be due to the species, or the soil, but it isn't dangerous. In the future, just buy nuts from a different country of origin (Italy, Korea, the US). And be sure to give the rest of your Chinese nuts to the bird. They won't taste the difference.
So the next time my kitty eyes my face hungrily and licks his lips as I prepare for sleep (prepping bed, donning Speed Racer PJs (pressed, naturally) and doffing my black* fuzzy bunny slippers), I should tempt kitty to eat Pine Nuts instead of larding him up with catnip? So he'll lick my cheeks, not chew?
Good to know!
* Cuz I'm Punk Rock. Duh
@lincolnparadox: That's very interesting. Not for the pine nuts, but because both times I was pregnant I tasted metal the entire 9 months. In fact, the second time I new I was pregnant before I took a test just because of the metallic taste. Now I know it's a common thing.
If I can only experience a foul, metallic taste and it makes all food unbearable...
Do I blame my grandma's cooking, or the pine nuts?
And how do you eat? Through a straw?
Lunesta does the same thing.
I've found my Flovent puffer does the same thing. (No offence flovent people - it does what it's supposed to do like a charm.)
While I'm using it, everything tastes like copper. (Luckily I only need it during cold season.)
As with the pine nuts, things taste normal in a day or three after I stop using it.
So this isn't the result of being shipped on the Chineses poison train?
Oh my god...that's what that was? I thought I had a tumor! Although I'm pretty sure the ones I had were organic and from California.
Jesus, that's what that was! I had Trader Joe's pine nuts and then I got that taste in my mouth! I thought I was dying! So, I'll just roll into the Trader Joe's today and be like "I want free cashews! Emotional damages!"
I blame Euell Gibbons.
@Deweavy: Tasting metal and spending the evening in the can. That better have been some incredible pesto.
Ech, I could not imagine eating pine-nuts by the handful. I just use them for recipes, and aside from being ridiculously expensive, they have that unpleasant coniferous tree taste.
May I suggest a possible "temporary" cure. People with "pine mouth" may want to try taking a few of these puppy's before they eat or drink. [www.thinkgeek.com] <- Miracle Berry Fruit Tablets! They make bitter ad sour foods taste amazingly sweet. I have ordered and tested these myself. I drank vinegar, ate coffee grounds, made sugarless lemonade, and even drank some hardcore liqour. These things work pretty darn well.
Pine nuts go rancid very quickly. (I bought some from Trader Joe's last year and they tasted fine for about a week, then started tasting nasty so I threw the rest out.)
It wouldn't be surprising if these imports from China were either too old or were improperly stored, so they had already gone bad by the time of purchase.
This phenomenon was actually documented in the European Journal of Emergency Medicine back in 2001:
"Taste disturbances after pine nut ingestion
A colleague anaesthesiologist experienced two episodes of taste disturbances after pine nut ingestion. At the first time, he just consumed a handful of pine nuts. Two days later, he developed an episode of taste disturbances (bitter, metallic taste). The disturbances lasted a few days. He made a link between pine nuts and the taste disturbances after the second episode when his wife and friends who shared with him a dish prepared with the same pine nuts complained of a persisting bitter taste sensation 2 days after the meal. Examination of the pine nuts revealed they were oxidized and not fit for consumption."
I use pine nuts often in my cooking and have yet to experience this. Of course, I do toast them first -- maybe that has something to do with it?
Also, the kitty in the picture looks just like our Annie.
Me too.
Make sure to rinse your mouth extremely thoroughly after using Flovent.
@Georgene Singletary Harkness: I honestly wonder where i can buy some of these things. i need to loose weight
No problem. Just treat your loss of taste with a liberal dose of zicam up your nose. Jeezzzz!
@Spin359:
I honestly wonder where i can buy some of these things. i need to loose weight
You are not the only one wondering!
What do pine nuts taste like after eating pine nuts?
I've eat pine nuts on my salad all the time. No problems here.
Ohh sounds like a good (albeit unpleasant) appetite suppressant! (Which reminds me, the pine oils naturally suppress appetite anyway) Pine nuts/pinons are sold by roadside vendors around here so I'm so down for a bag.
@cete-of-badgers: In the four-corners area of Arizona (especially on the Navajo reservation) they're a popular seasonal treat. I've had "regular" pine nuts and they do have that pine-y taste, but I think they eat a different variety here.
Ha ha, get this too, you can pick them for free. We used to have day trips where all we would do is drive to a mountainous region and pick pinons all day.
I seriously also just had this happen to me in the last week. I ate a handful of pine nuts with spaghetti! I was a little worried that I might be developing a sinus infection, because anosmia or dysosmia is often a sign for me.
But I LOVE pine nuts! Argh!
That's actually not uncommon for pine nuts, but perhaps more common for the particular variety. They are not really "nuts", but the seeds from pine cones, and if you eat what would constitute a crapload, it can happen. I remember when I was little, my grandmother used to tell me how they'd buy the whole cones to toast and make them, back in the day.