Have you experienced a "pine mouth"?

Yesterday, I noticed a strange bitter taste in my mouth, with metallic overtones. Since I had a dental procedure in the morning, I attributed that to side effects of local anesthesia and maybe other dental substances left over. However, a few hours later, the effect persisted and any food I would ingest would taste strange and mostly bitter.

To my surprise, in the evening my wife complained about similar symptoms, at which point we started worrying about food poisoning. We have a large family and only two of us complained, so we figured it must have been that dinner we went two 48 hrs prior. Still not knowing what to do, I did some web search and voilia -- it's caused by pine nuts. We had indeed eaten a very tasty specialty salad that had pine nuts in it.

The results of web search were quite massive. Apparently, there is a virtual epidemic of this now around the world. Not everyone is affected, and there seems to be a correlation with pine nuts sourced in China -- which in many time is difficult to ascertain because they get re-exported from Korea and Russia, and sometimes even when they are imported in the US directly. Sometimes the term "pine mouth" is used to describe what's happening, but a lot can be found one the web with "bitter taste" + "pine nuts".

The kicker is that the symptoms remain for about 2 weeks (here's an excellent chance to lose some weight). I'm still worried about this poorly understood phenomenon.

Have you experienced anything like that recently?

Wow, I have never heard of anything remotely like this. But wait, pine trees don't produce nuts, they produce pinecones, right?

This is very interesting, I hope you get this problem sorted out soon.

Originally posted by Xammu
Wow, I have never heard of anything remotely like this. But wait, pine trees don't produce nuts, they produce pinecones, right?

The edible seeds are called pine nuts:

en.wikipedia.org...
(also info on that bitter effect can be found in there)

This is very interesting, I hope you get this problem sorted out soon.

Ginger seems to help to confuse taste buds back into normal operation, but it doesn't last very long.

i work in a kitchen, and we use pine nuts all the time( all of them from china cuz of the price) and have never experienced this thing, but i did a google on it and found alot of other people from my country(denmark) have that effect !

from the danish webdoctor site it looks like this started around the beginning of 2010, one of the treads states that is was only from ingesting mini pine nuts from china

putting up a linky from the danish site

pine nut blog


just had a thought, would be fun to eat miracle fruit and see what that bitter taste is like after

miracle fruit


[edit on 9-6-2010 by Kalomar]

every time I drink gin I get a pine taste in my mouth.

but I've never had pinenuts before

reply to post by Totalstranger


That's from the juniper berries. Not a true "berry". The juniper is actually a coniferous tree. So, yes gin does have a bit of a perfumey, pine-like flavor.

Originally posted by Totalstranger
every time I drink gin I get a pine taste in my mouth.

I wish it tasted that good

Whereas in fact it doesn't even taste like pine at all! It's just a horrible bitter unpleasant taste. The fact that pine nuts caused this chemistry reaction doesn't give it a pine (or better yet, gin) taste, unfortunately.

Whatever is causing it is probably not good. It's not likely to be a residue that is staying in your mouth for that long, it sounds like nerve damage from something.

It's been a while since I had pine nuts in a salad or in a pesto. They certainly do leave an aftertaste, a bit of belch-causing gas too which contributes to the aftertaste. I don't recall it lasting more than a couple days.
I think I will be avoiding them for now based on your experience.

After a bit of reading, it seems the reports of pine mouth point to the Chinese variety of pine nuts and not the European ones.

Also, some things people said helped:
Brush teeth, cheeks, tongue with a baking soda and salt blend (2 parts salt to one part baking soda).
Vinegary foods
Spicy foods like Thai
Sparkling mineral water
Dry ginger ale

Avoid toothpaste, milk, cheese, pretzels, dried fruit, chocolate....for now.

Originally posted by pieman
Whatever is causing it is probably not good. It's not likely to be a residue that is staying in your mouth for that long, it sounds like nerve damage from something.

There is even a theory that they cause the liver to cleanse itself, by expelling all the bad stuff it had accumulated. Which is supposedly good, after that horrible period of 2 weeks is over...

Originally posted by buddhasystem
There is even a theory that they cause the liver to cleanse itself, by expelling all the bad stuff it had accumulated. Which is supposedly good, after that horrible period of 2 weeks is over...

I'm not really sure that your liver should be accumulating bad stuff, and if it is, it's probably best that it doesn't get released into the rest of your body!!!

I really think I'll be avoiding the pine-nut salad for a few months.

yeah last week i began experiencing the same thing. i've been sick before. but this taste in my mouth is something i've never experienced. its just now dying down. my gf too.

no one else on this thread is serious. but i am, and i'd like to know what is going on. i have no theories. no guesses even, so i apologize for wasting thread space. just wanted to let you know youre not going crazy (alone anyways lol).

I haven't had any problems with Aussie pine nuts, and eat then regularly, out of the packet. Probably my favourite food of all time. Make sure you source good quality pine nuts, they're incredibly common and it's just the intensive harvest costs that make them sooo expensive. Wouldn't touch any Chinese veges or nuts with a long stick. Their garlic also tastes horrible compared to local (or even Mexican) product. My guess would be that they're harvesting them too soon and the nut hasn't flushed some chemical back into the tree for re-use. A more nefarious thought could be a fertiliser or pesticide they spray is leaking into the nut itself. But I'd go with the early harvest one personally.

Edit to add: Actually thinking about it now, I'd say the use of fertilisers combined with a young tree combined with the harvesting of an immature nut (that for all intents and purposes is the same size as a mature one) would equal an immature nut still containing chemicals that would usually be flushed back into the tree when mature.

It's just like on a grape vine when we monitor sugar levels to gauge maturity. Other chemicals get fed back into the vine as the grape ripens.

I'd look into the growth of the Pine Nut plantations in China. If the industry suddenly increased around 1996 ish, then I would say the demand for pine nuts pushed the producers to speed up the harvest times, and as a result deliver an inferior product.

On a side note:

A lot of food can have a chemical reaction in the mouth and cause you to taste all types of things. Here's a link to the "Miracle Fruit" - a berry that makes sweet taste sour and vis-versa.

Miricle Fruit Taste Test

If you look around the net you can find a few more things that will do this.

I often taste an extremely sweet taste while smoking a cigarette. It's nothing in the tobacco, and I also notice it while eating 'taste-neutral' foods like lettuce. Haven't figured out what it is yet, but I'm thinking it might be a preservative or additive in processed foods.

Cheers
Shane


[edit on 3/7/10 by shamus78]

Originally posted by shamus78
I haven't had any problems with Aussie pine nuts, and eat then regularly, out of the packet. Probably my favourite food of all time. Make sure you source good quality pine nuts, they're incredibly common and it's just the intensive harvest costs that make them sooo expensive. Wouldn't touch any Chinese veges or nuts with a long stick. Their garlic also tastes horrible compared to local (or even Mexican) product. My guess would be that they're harvesting them too soon and the nut hasn't flushed some chemical back into the tree for re-use. A more nefarious thought could be a fertiliser or pesticide they spray is leaking into the nut itself. But I'd go with the early harvest one personally.

Edit to add: Actually thinking about it now, I'd say the use of fertilisers combined with a young tree combined with the harvesting of an immature nut (that for all intents and purposes is the same size as a mature one) would equal an immature nut still containing chemicals that would usually be flushed back into the tree when mature.

It's just like on a grape vine when we monitor sugar levels to gauge maturity. Other chemicals get fed back into the vine as the grape ripens.

On a side note:

A lot of food can have a chemical reaction in the mouth and cause you to taste all types of things. Here's a link to the "Miracle Fruit" - a berry that makes sweet taste sour and vis-versa.

Miricle Fruit Taste Test

If you look around the net you can find a few more things that will do this.

I often taste an extremely sweet taste while smoking a cigarette. It's nothing in the tobacco, and I also notice it while eating 'taste-neutral' foods like lettuce. Haven't figured out what it is yet, but I'm thinking it might be a preservative or additive in processed foods.

Cheers
Shane



[edit on 3/7/10 by shamus78]

[edit on 3/7/10 by shamus78]

again, i may be the only serious person here but i would genuinely like to know what happened. i apologize for all these small people. but if you ever looked into it, hit me at least with what you found.

Again, all I can offer is theory's (if I had my own lab then I might be able to help ya some more!)

Two other possibilities: I'm a vineyard operator. Over here, we have to wait 2 weeks from the last spray to when we begin to harvest the grapes, otherwise residual spray can still be active on the grapes. This will effect the taste of the grapes and even the wine it is used to produce. In particular copper and sulphur will do this.

1. I'm willing to bet that the quality controls over in China are not as strict. In fact, I'd guess that they may even spray them after the pine cone has been harvested with pesticides (while they are waiting for the cone to open). The 'pine mouth' phenomenon also seems to have appeared when Monsanto was making big headways into China. Just a thought.

I'm not bashing the Chinese people, but we all know if you want to produce something made quick and dirty (with reduced costs to the producers, and reduced quality to the consumers) get it done in China.

2. This has to do with the interactions of the nut itself upon the taste buds. This is a quote about Miricle Fruit:

The berry itself has a low sugar content[3] and a mildly sweet tang. It contains a glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin.[4][5] When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue's taste buds, causing sour foods to taste sweet. While the exact cause for this change is unknown, one theory is that the effect may be caused if miraculin works by distorting the shape of sweetness receptors "so that they become responsive to acids, instead of sugar and other sweet things".[6] This effect lasts 15–60 minutes.[7]

Now, that's for a fruit that has very low fat. Whereas the Pine Nut is very high in mono-saturated fat. So is it possible that the increased length of time this effect lasts for can be attributed to the fat finding it easier to bind on the tongue?

So that's about four theories in the last half hour. Personally, I'd go with a combination of all of these rolled together into a big ball of nutty goodness.

Hope it helps. But if you want to avoid it again, just don't eat foods made in China. Although that would be almost impossible if eating at a restaurant.

Cheers
Shane

reply to post by shamus78


thank you sir or maam and i realise i sounded disrespectful. i apologize.

what you're talking about is the new diet fad. the miracle fruit that makes everything sweet. this may be what happened to the person who posted this, but its not what happened to me. and i dont think its what happened to him/her either. i appreciate your input to no ends but i'm eager to know what really is going on. what youre talking about is gone in less than a half hour. then what is it if it lasts 2 weeks?

i know i didnt eat any of this. i ate food from china (rice) but they dont sweeten that. and it wouldve gone away. a week and a half later its just now going away. i'm just curious.

fat cant stay on a tongue for two weeks i know that.

the copper/sulphur theory, maybe but how could it have stayed in my mouth for a wk and a half? and i felt under the weather (just enough to be noticable) yet it was unlike any "illness" i ever had.

idk. but you have all kinds of theories. so i must be stupid. thank you for the insight and enjoy your day/night.

reply to post by mav0360


Hey, no disrepect taken! And it's Shane, not Sir

Always willing to talk to people on ATS

I realise you weren't specifically talking about the Miracle Fruit, but had to bring it up to demonstrate the different ways things can interact with our taste-buds. That's all I meant by it, nothing more.

You're right - fat can't stay on a tounge, but it can hide away in the many folds and crevices on your tounge. Have a look at some close-ups of tongues - they have so many hidey holes that it's impossible to clean all of it.

Something's staying there for two weeks, I don't know of any interactions that can be induced and then stay that way for that long without some type of reinforcement, although I get the feeling you're thinking it might be a either a sickness or poisoning effect instead. That could be a possibility.

Trying to find reliable data on Chinese pine nut plantations over the net is a no go. It's the type of thing you'll have to do real world research on to find out. I envy you having the opportunity to do so.

Anyhow, I'm not expert, and can just throw up theories for others to look at.

And if you're trying to find answers, then you're certainly not stupid.

Cheers
Shane

Wow,so I came across this on ats because my wife is experiencing pine mouth.
She was in Texas a week ago where she had some in her salad.
Since then everything but fun ions that's bad including chocolate.

So she is going to try some of the remedies mentioned here.

Thanks ATS!

Wow,so I came across this on ats because my wife is experiencing pine mouth.
She was in Texas a week ago where she had some in her salad.
Since then everything but fun ions that's bad including chocolate.

So she is going to try some of the remedies mentioned here.

Thanks ATS!

I worked in the produce and bulk food departments at a upscale (for Fort Wayne, IN) and there was a difference in taste between European origin pinenuts and those from China. The ones from China smelled like pine, and left a piney taste, kind of like smelling Pine Sol while eating. I only samples a few nuts so didn't have any long-lasting taste, though. I had some people sample them, and some people tasted it and some didn't. I've always wondered if it might be some kind of weird sensory thing, like when some people can smell cyanide, and some can't. We all have different chemistry; one way to show that is the smell of urine after eating asparagus. One thing I did read while researching it all back then (about 5 years ago) was that the a different kind of tree used might be closely related but not the same.
I do agree about the garlic from China.....it is old! No kidding, the boxes smelled and looked old when it came in. US grown produce is the way to go whenever possible. The price might be higher, but the product is fresher and better quality.