I started to get a bitter taste in my mouth after eating. At first I thought I was going to die so I Googled on it – how many people a minute go through that process! My scatter gun approach to diagnosis came up with a series of suggestions. I either had jaundice or I was diabetic or I had eaten pine nuts (possibly from China) in the last few days. My skin isn’t yellow and my pee isn’t orange and I am not thirsty all the time but I had eaten a new kind of pine nut in the last few days so the third option looks like it warrants attention. After Googling start blogging.
There is a very short scientific-like paper out there Taste disturbances after pine nut ingestion. In the initial case the pine nuts were oxidized and not fit for consumption but six other cases are mentioned and it is not clear if these were oxidized. A test subject also consumed two portions of nuts which I guess they wouldn’t do if they were oxidized. Importantly there was no fungal contamination, no pesticide contamination and they didn’t know what species of tree the nuts were from but they had come from China.
The wikipedia pine nut page currently summarises and has a few links to discussion groups where the effect is mentioned.
Now I eat pine nuts a lot (I am a veggie) and this is the first time this has happened. It is also the first time I have had ‘Baby’ pine nuts which were sold as being small. My theory is that these are actually a different species of pine nut. This would be fun to investigate.
What candidates do we have among commonly eaten pine nut species ( according to Wikipedia)
Pinus gerardiana, known as the Chilgoza Pine, ‘noosa’, or ‘neoza’, is a pine native to the northwestern Himalaya in eastern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwest India, growing at elevations between 1800-3350 m. It often occurs in association with Blue Pine (Pinus wallichiana) and Deodar Cedar (Cedrus deodara).(Wikipedia) – This is a possible one. Are its seeds smaller than P. koraiensis I wonder?
Pinus koraiensis is Korean Pine. It is native to eastern Asia, Manchuria, far eastern Russia, Korea and central Japan. Korean Pine differs from the closely related Siberian Pine in having larger cones with reflexed scale tips, and longer needles. The seeds are extensively harvested and sold as pine nuts, particularly in northeastern China; it is the most widely traded pine nut in international commerce. – Very likely. (Wikipedia)
Pinus pinea Stone Pine (or Umbrella Pine) Native of Southern Europe in the Mediterranean region (Wikipedia) – not likely contender.
Pinus edulis Colorado Pinyon or Two-needle Pinyo is native to the United States and so not likely contender.
Pinus cembroides Mexican Pinyon – mexican so not likely to bother us.
Pinus monophylla Single-leaf Pinyon – USA native so not likely to bother us.
Looks like there are two contenders. Common things happen commonly so I have probably been eating P. koraiensis for years as it is the most commonly traded. Perhaps these new seeds are P. gerardiana?
I will investigate further.
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After enjoying freshly-made pesto this past weekend, with pine-nuts from Vons, I’ve been suffering through “pine mouth” too. I never had a problem with pine nuts, but I will never eat them again. I called the FDA to try to make a complaint, and had a nice chat with the person there who knew all about “pine mouth”. He reassured me that I probably wasn’t in any immediate danger, but said there wasn’t anything the FDA could do about it. Does anybody understand this? So, what exactly does the FDA do, anyway? They must be taking notes from the SEC.
I never had so much pine nuts before until last week. I realized the bitter taste in my mouth about 4 days ago. I purchased the nuts from Superstore (Vancouver). It is good to know about this problem from the web. At first I thought I had sinus infection due to allegies.
SAME THING!! I bought a big bag of pine nuts at Trader Joe’s last week, mixed them with other small nuts and seeds (sunflower, pistachio, etc.), and have been putting a spoonful on my cereal every morning. The disgusting, bitter taste on the back of my tongue began at about the same time, and has become constant! Glad I found your comments! Has anybody found an antidote to gargle with?
I too have a bad taste and been wondering what it was, i did wonder whether it was olives as i’ve been eating tons of them lately! Then i googled ‘bad taste’ and found this about pinenuts.. i’ve been adding them to my lunch everyday! and they are from Morrisons!! They’re in the bin now, need to get rid of this taste, it’s putting me off everything i eat!
I too thought that I was dying until I came upon your post! Any official word on how long it typically lasts? I last ate pinenuts two nights ago… It does go away eventually ‘tho, right?
Thanks for your post and comments; feels better to know that I’m not alone!
Has anyone else felt sick too? I had pine nuts from Trader Joes, on 4/25, 27 and 28– today, 4/29, worst taste ever after drinking water, eating bread and having cereal. Also a very bad stomach ache as well.
OMG! – I have been going on about horried matalic taste in my mouth all week – to the point I was worried I may be pregnant or something worse! I brought some pine nuts from Tesco’s last week, as I was starting my healthy plan diet (holiday = bikinin soon), I created lots of nice salads for my lunches – all topped with pine nuts!! Anyway I was so worried about the taste issue I googled it …. and what a relief to find out that it is nothing too sinister or child number 3 on the way! However what is the point of sellling these if they cause this? I am now eagarly waiting for taste to be normal again . . . . however great results for the diet – I dont really fancy eating much at the moment
So glad I found this post!!!!!, Over the past few days i’ve been experiencing a bad taste in my mouth, which concerned me enough, to look it up on the internet. I’ve been using a lot of pine nuts bought from tesco in my pasta which could be causing this horrible taste in my mouth. The origin of the pinenuts are from china, in future i will avoid
I got the same thing after eating store brand Pine Nuts from Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh, PA. I bought them on Sunday, toasted and ate them Monday morning (sort of noticed the weird taste starting at morning coffee Tuesday morning) and googled last night (Wednesday) because I was sure I had some terrible weird ailment–good to know what it is! Is there somewhere that wants to test them? I’ll send them wherever….I looked at the packaging, and it says Product of China, best before 7/13/10. Are you collecting email addresses?
I too had pine nuts in a chicken lasgna dish… exactly two days later the curse of “metal mouth” and other disturbing side effects occured… annoying slight headache and throat pain. Thank goodness for others stories! Purchased a small amount at a local health food store!! Lemonade… believe it or not helps reduce the metal taste somewhat and only time and NO MORE PINE NUTS will help the rest!
Don’t be fooled roasting doesn’t help. I made two different meals same batch of pine nuts stored in freezer roasted before adding to dish. I didn’t make the connection until the crazy taste came back after the second meal. Beware bulk foods.
I started feeling a strange taste in mouth after eating Costco pine nuts. The positive side of it is the changed taste of Wine. So I drink much less and that’s a good thing. Of course other tastes for other foods are distorted as well. I willnot eat raw nuts again.
This is really quite strange that within a week or so we have had similar experiences – I too had pasta last night with quite a lot of pine nuts (smaller ones than normal, from Sainsbo’s) and have had the same horrid taste all day today…maybe we should tell Ann Robinson or something
Hope it goes soon, two weeks would be a disaster @von, poor thing!
You don’t know how happy and relieved I was to see this article! I couldn’t understand why I was getting this bitter taste in my mouth. I ate some small pine nuts three days ago and since then I have this bitter taste in my mouth, even if I eat something really sweet. I even tried tasting salt and that was still bitter. I hope this is the problem and it will go away sooner rather than later, because I am not enjoying my food and I am not wasting my wine if I cannot enjoy it. I normally buy Salad Sprinkle from Holland & Barrets and the pine nuts in there are much bigger, so I think I would stick with those ones!!
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Been dealing with this for a couple of days now and I was really starting to worry! My pine nuts were part of a salad — the “little” ones and I think my wife got them from Trader Joe’s or possibly Henry’s Market.
As a side note, I’ve always considered myself to have an overdeveloped bitter sense. I simply can’t stand things like grapefruit juice etc. I wonder if this is the same for anyone else here.
Well well well! I too have been suffering from a really strong bitter taste ,especially when eating. I bought pinenuts from Morrisons (unusually small) to make pesto. Hopefully it will soon pass.
Thank God for the computers!
While I was on chemotherapy, I probably ate pine nuts with out paying any attention, so I blamed the bitterness in my mouth on chemo…
Yesterday again I had that bitter feeling in the part of the tong that it is closer to the throat, specially after food intake. The food it self was bitter as soon I swallowed it, and after taste was bitter. Today I went on google and googled about this problem, and first that it came out is pine nuts… Of course couple days ago I had pine nuts in my salad and also as a snack.. so I put two and two together. Now, I will not have them any more, and my thoughts will not run wild that I have some liver or gold stones problem…
Thank you for the information who ever shared with us.
Oh no I hope I don’t follow in Von’s footsteps! I don’t think I will last 14 days of this! We are living in Munich, Germany and bought these organic ‘baby’-sized pine nuts from a reputable health food store. They say they are from China-probably the Pinus Koreiensis variety. I had them on my salad on Friday and this awful medicine-like taste is still going strong now-Sunday night!
Wow… been searching the web to try to figure out why I had this bitter taste on the back part of my tongue that seems to get worse when I eat anything. I did have pine nuts on Thurs and Fri and on Sunday is when the bitter taste started. I hope this is the answer and the taste will disappear soon. I have never eaten pine nuts before. I also have low counts of vitamin B-12, D, and iron and was blaming the deficencies until I read the above posts. Thanks, maybe it is just the pinenuts!
I had pine nuts on Firday night and Sunday evening i started getting this awful taste after i eat or drink-worst after coffee I had it once before and don’t remember how long before it went away. Now i know to stay away from pine nuts.
This weekend I experienced a metallic and detergent like taste in my mouth when eating. I also felt nauseous. I googled it and found a list of possible causes and had decided to see my doctor or dentist. However while on line I stumbled upon the “Pine Nut metallic taste” posts –I straight away knew this was the cause, I had eaten pine nuts 6 times over 2 days, (purchased from Dunne’s Stores and within date). One of the sites suggested root ginger tea and I have found this helps, also I have sourced comments that suggest a liver detox for a few days, so will try this also. I too will never eat pine nuts again.
Me and my fiancee have both eaten pine nuts this past week, also bought from Morrisons. Has been about three days now that have noticed the bitter taste. And does seem to be subsiding a little. Am brushing my teeth, tongue scraping and gargling with mouthwash three times a day. This seems to help a little. Does anyone else notice that some food and drinks seem to trigger the bitter taste more than others? My fiancee thinks that tea tastes awlful now.
My husband ate a handful of pine nuts as a snack a few days ago, and awoke with a bitter taste in his mouth that wouldn’t quit. He Twittered about it, and a friend came back with the “Pine Mouth” answer.
This seems absolutely like it’s the case. We checked the pine nuts, which we purchased from Whole Foods, and they are indeed a product of China.
While this is a new phenomenon, and it’s unclear what the cause is, I wanted to mention the nuts’ origin in the interest of being thorough.
He’s on day 3 and still experiencing the bitterness. Judging by other responses, I am guessing he has another week and a half to go.
Thanks for the article and comments. It’s very reassuring to know this irritation will pass soon for him.
Just putting my name up with the rest of the poor souls here who have had this awful, awful taste. I had raw pine nuts from Trader Joe’s last night. (Still have the bag if you want ‘em for research!) Seriously, I hope you move ahead on your research. It’s quite an interesting botanical mystery!
I have recently bought chilli spiced seeds and almond from Asda. I started having a bitter taste post eating and was actually thinking that something was medically going wrong with me until I discovered to this site. thanks for alleviating my anxiety. Pine nuts are in the contents and I will now stay clear from it.
yes ! it’s pine nuts i had some two weeks ago and i still have bitter taste after eating, thanks
I thought i was dying due to this bizarre metallic taste i’ve had in my mouth for the last couple of days… so i got on google and Bingo! was surprised to see “pine nuts” of all things. i have eaten a whole bag of them in the last couple of days due to this candida diet i’m on which means i basically eat veges and nuts all day. thanks for the info, feel better already!
I had pine nuts three days ago and started to feel that bitter taste when I eat from two days ago. At beginning I thought my food had become bad, and I probably had poisoned myself, but the food tasted ok to others. I had pine nuts before and this is the first time that I had bitter taste after eating it. So your article explained it – it’s a different type of pine nuts.
I can’t tell you how relieved I am!
I was googling what the cause could be – friend at work is an ex-dental nurse and suggested it could be infected salivary glands or problem with lymph glands or infected gums or bad teeth hygiene etc etc etc.
I had pine nuts on Sunday and started tasting this weird bitter taste on Tuesday. Even bought myself some chocolate as a treat and it was completely wasted on me! It tasted lovely first and then the bitter taste arrived. Wine in the fridge – tastes vile.
I look forward to the taste going away again, judging by the posts above, only another 10 or so days to go.
Thank goodness for this article! I ate pine nuts in a pasta salad 4 nights ago and since then have had a horrible taste in my mouth. Nobody else who ate the same food has my symptons, so didn’t think it could be a harmless little pine nut! It will be a LONG time till I eat them again!
Thank goodness I am not about to die of some strange cancer or something. I, also, have been snacking on some pine nuts my daughter bought to put on homemade pizza this past Saturday night. I thought it was odd the box said the nuts came from China when I looked at it a few days ago (we live in Colorado and she lives in Arizona where she even gets fresh roasted pine nuts ‘on site’ in the Navajo nation ..but heck these were cheap and she was here, not there.) Then two days ago I had a drink and it tasted so odd, and then dinner that night, same thing. Last night I narrowed it down to a bitter taste in the back of my mouth/tongue, roof of my mouth. I too thought maybe a filling had come loose and I was having toxic stuff leaking in my mouth. Then I googled bitter taste back of mouth..and voila. Strange. But helpful to know, even if not why.
I have had a bitter/bad taste in my mouth for the past couple days and it ruins anything I eat or drink. I made pesto with pine nuts from china last week and continued to eat the leftovers with more pine nuts. Am wishing I didn’t eat the last handful of nuts right now. I was worried I’ve never had this happen before from eating pine nuts? I wonder if there is something seriously wrong with these pine nuts from China, you know like the tainted toothpaste and paint for kids toys from China??? Does anyone know more…
Just ate some raw pine nuts on Sunday and discovered this and other info about their bad side effects. I have eaten them before and never had this problem. Am very dismayed to hear that this is going to last so long. And yes, wine tastes the worst. Very sweet and very salty foods are bearable. The packaging said “Product of Turkey” but that could mean that the nuts were just packaged there. The company is Terra Firma Foods.
What a relief!!! Glad I found this ‘cos I thought I was going mad !!! Have been eating pine nuts for a long time with no noticable affect. Had some the last two days and had a really weird taste in my mouth, everything I eat seems to be bitter, including the pak choi in my stir fry !!
I have eaten pine nuts with no problems for a long time. But have developed a metallic taste in mouth having eaten an essential seed mix, containing pine nuts, bought from Sainsburys a few days ago. I hope you may have provided an answer.
Waitrose fruit nut & seed mix, bitter taste mainly at the top/back of my mouth. Exactly the same as pretty much all the comments here..! Clearly doesn’t effect everyone as my wife had them as well with no side effect.
Thank you so much for this article. I had pine nuts in pesto 2 days ago and have had this bitter/medicinal taste after eating and drinking ever since. I was nervous for a second, but this is surely what it is. Thanks again.
Going through this now myself. Over 2 days I ate 3 – 4oz of pine nuts imported from China and packaged by Green Land in Oakland Garden, New York. My local supermarket says they were made aware of the issue and received a fresh shipment which they are selling for $8 for 5oz as opposed to the $7.50 I paid 5 days ago. I can only hope they returned the old batch in time to spare a few people this nasty inconvenience.
I have finally worked out why I have this dreadful taste in my mouth…… I will never eat pine nuts again either….it. is so horrible….. I have been so worried about what was wrong with me – pine nuts are going in the bin!
This happened to me too. I ate just a small hand full of Pine Nuts from the Trader Joe’s grocery store. The bag says they are a “. . . product of India or Korea.” About 2 days later I had an awful bitter taste in my mouth. It’s still lingering a bit, but seems to have lessened over time. It’s been about 10 days since I ate the nuts. I used to eat pine nuts all the time, but only from local native conifers (southern California) and I don’t think I’ve ever eaten them from any other source.
I’ve had a similar experience when taking certain antibiotics, and I thought it was related to some vitamins I was using, but a friend at work mentioned Pine Nuts because he too had experienced the same thing. After searching around some, it looks like this is the most likely cause. What could have caused this sudden phenomenon?!
I taste disgusting! For the last 4 days I have had an awful taste when eating. It’s even worse than morning breath! Having read various different forums, I looked in the bin for my recently eaten pot of Asda chilli-spiced seeds and almonds and lo and behold PINE NUTS!
I’m so glad I’m not going mad!
Same here! I made a pasta pesto on Tuesday and on Wednesday my hubby started complaining of a bad taste in his mouth, On Thursday, it suddenly hit me too! We thought it was a result of the Volcanic Ash drop out from Iceland. Now I realise that the bag of pine nuts were newly opened and this is a relief to know the source of the problem. Hate the thought of this bad taste lasting 2 weeks though!
Thank God. I just googled “bad taste in mouth after eating” and found this site. I bought pine nuts at Winco last week and enjoyed them on a salad. I will NEVER eat them again. I just wonder if there is a long-term problem that these may have caused. It’s been over a week and even water tastes bad.
So something should be done about this – there are so many of us here so I’m certain there are thousands more. Does anyone have an idea how we get something done? And is there a cure or is it just to be waited out. It’s revolting! I bought my bag of mixed nuts in Aldi or Lidl stores in the UK before returning to Bulgaria. I thought someone was ‘nuts’ suggesting pine nuts as a cause of the bad taste…then I remembered I opened those bag of nuts the other day…the same time as the bad taste started which is getting worse, it’s about 5 days now.
I also had a reaction after consuming pine nuts from China. I am Italian and have eaten pine nuts often for most of my life, but two years ago I picked up a bag from a local farmer’s market and suffered the most awful bitter/metallic taste in my mouth that lasted for two weeks. Needless to say, I chewed A LOT of gum. The symptoms occurred 3 days after I ingested the pine nuts and at the time I had no idea what had caused the reaction. After narrowing down what I had eaten during that time period, I suspected pine nuts. So, after a week or so, I ate a small handful of those pine nuts and unfortunately had the same reaction and had to suffer through another week and a half of that awful taste. It was during that time I did my internet research and found that pine nuts from China may be the cause. I contacted the folks at the farmer’s market, and sure enough, the nuts they sell are imported from China.
It all startet in school today. I ate an apple and thought it tastet awful. When I came home the banana tastet the same and when I had my dinner – fish whit lemon – I stopped eating. Ofcause I tried the internet to find an answer. And yes I bought a cheap bag of pine-nuts (small ones) and ate a lot on my salad Saturday.
But I would very much like an answer. What is it? Are they toxic or what?
I cannot express how pleased I am to find this site, I have also developed the vile taste and sick feeling and wracked and wracked my brains for anything I had done/ taken at all differently to no avail..I decided to seek my friends medical opinion who helpfully suggested I was most likely in the family way..imagine my panic!! Never again for the lowly pine nut!
this is so strange. My wife and I went for lunch on Monday morining and we shared our food, late that night I started to have this bitter tast in my mouth. I thought it was the steak or beans but my wife didnt suffer from any tast problems and she shared my food. I now know that on Sunday night I ate pin nutes from Korea. I have eaten them before but this was a new bottle. its Tuesday and everything I eat tasts horrible. No more pine Nuts for me.
Wow! I also thought I must be pregnant or sick– or “detoxing” from the raspberry tea i had been drinking (detoxing is said to cause a bitter taste). My husband kept laughing at me: “This cucumber peel is NOT bitter! Stop peeling that!” “This cheese is not bitter– you’re crazy!” Etc. I have just told him that we can throw away the Trader Joe’s humus (with pine nut garnish on top!) as well as the bag of pine nuts we bought for salads. Yes, the taste is truly vile– and I usually LIKE bitter tastes like grapefruit. This is crazy. I have to go complain to Trader Joe’s (the website people at http://www.traderjoes.com are worthless, usually telling you to mention it to the staff people there, who tell you they can’t change anything, and to go to the site… Haha!). Anyway, I DID notice the pine nuts looked weird and were very small the last time I bought them at TJ’s, but that was it. Again, this NEVER used to happen after I ate pine nuts; hence, a terrible development. I suspect that since this is an expensive product, the Chinese (and/or others) are tempted to “push along” growth with more “modern” methods– such as our factory farms have done for over 20 years now. To no one’s benefit except to produce Cheaper Food.
It was a relief to come across this article and also the comments from the other “sufferers”. I was wondering why I was having this bitter taste in the mouth. I had made Polenta bread with pine-nuts 3 days ago. One day after after consuming the bread I have this horrible bitter taste at the back of my tongue. Anyway I know what caused it so I will stop worrying. I only wish the horrible taste will go away soon.