Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Pine Mouth....what?!?!

The other day I felt like food I was eating had a weird bitter/metallic aftertaste.  I don't remember what I was eating when I noticed it for the first time, but it was BIZARRE!  I let it go for a couple of days and just thought maybe something was up with a filling I have.  Yesterday I finally Googled (yes, I know it's dangerous to google symptoms, strange things come up), bitter taste in mouth and yep weird things came up, but I wanted to figure out if I needed to call a doc or dentist.  I don't want to be passing anything strange through the breastmilk people.... So I click on Pinch My Salt because it mentioned pine nuts, and I thought "Hmmmm, just had pasta with pine nuts last week...?"
Apparently if you are lucky enough to get a bad pine nut or a few, you can get a taste disturbance called pine mouth.  Even Wikipedia has a section under pine nuts about it:

Risks of eating pine nuts (who knew...)
A small minority of pine nuts cultivated in China can cause taste disturbances, lasting between few days to maximal a week after consumption. A bitter, metallic taste is described. Though unpleasant, there are no lasting effects. This phenomenon was first described in a scientific paper in 2001.[11] Some publications have made reference to this phenomenon as "pine mouth".[12] The Nestle Research Centre has hypothesized that a particular species of Chinese pine nuts, Pinus armandii, is the cause of the problem. The suspect species of pine nuts are smaller, duller, and more rounded than typical pine nuts.[13] This finding has recently been confirmed.[14] In 1998 the FAO published a list of edible tree nuts, containing 29 species of pine nuts that are regularly consumed somewhere in the world[15] and the aforementioned Chinese pine species were not included. Metallic taste disturbance, known as metallogeusia, is typically reported 1–3 days after ingestion, being worse on day 2 and lasting typically up to 2 weeks. Cases are self-limited and resolve without treatment[16] Möller[17] has postulated an hypothesis that could explain why the bitter taste appears several days after ingestion and lasts for as long. A well known physiological process known as enterohepatic recirculation (EHR) could play a key role in the development of PNS.
The FDA is currently investigating “Pine Mouth”.

So I have now idea, if I can ever eat pine nuts again...I mean I guess I technically can because it's not harmful to me, but ewwww who wants this taste in their mouth after EVERYTHING they eat?!?!  Another strange thing: Jeremy doesn't have it, and he ate the same pine nuts...I wonder if it not only has to do with "bad" pine nuts but with certain people's body chemistry...???  Anyways, I have about four days left to hit a week and half which seems to be the typical time people report no longer having the bitter after taste; some people seem to think the 1-2 week time period goes with how long a tastebud lasts, and it simply affects your tastebuds in that only bitter tastes are sensed....Should go away when the tastebuds "die" and new ones come in.  I am thankful it's not as bad as other cases that everything they eat tastes bitter while eating.  My issue is strictly after taste. Blahhhhh!

2 comments:

Amanda Leigh said...

That is actually pretty funny ;) And random.

Jessie Case said...

Yeah Jeremy just laughed when I told him I had this issue. Lol