This is perhaps the most bizarre blog I’ve ever written. Yet I thought I should warn people about pine nuts. For the last five days I’ve been complaining about a strange after-taste when I eat anything; it’s almost but not quite metallic.
Having had a filling a couple of weeks ago I thought it might be that but nothing seemed wrong. Yet the taste persists and it’s been driving me up the wall.
So I decided to use Google to look up strange tastes and I found the following:
- Chinese pine nut taste problems.
- Wikipedia on pine nuts: Risks of eating pine nuts. The eating of pine nuts can cause serious taste disturbances, developing 1-3 days after consumption and lasting for days or weeks. A bitter, metallic taste is described. In general, a minority of pine nuts on the market present this problem. Though very unpleasant, there does not seem to be a real health concern.
- European Journal of Health. Taste disturbances after pine nut eating.
Now do note I wasn’t looking for pine nuts; you wouldn’t exactly think to would you? Yet the taste disturbance was EXACTLY what I’d described. And no surprise, for the last fortnight I’ve twice had a new salad from a ‘select your own salad ingredients’ place and i’ve asked for pine nuts in it, having never really eaten them before.
While it’s not a scientific diagnosis, and I’m not a medical person, the correlation is pretty strong. Strange taste in mouth – newly started eating pine nuts – Google full of pine nut taste distruptions.
Needless to say… they’re off my menu from now on.
PS. Seems there’s a trend happening here; the day after I wrote this the Mail published this story: Pine Mouth Puzzle
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