Monday, May 11, 2009

Forget Swine- the new BAD is Pine!


When I was in Florida I was troubled by a persistent bitter taste in my mouth, stronger than anything I could eat. It worried me enough to google it on the computer in the exercise room. I decided it must be psychological, you know, a bitter thing to swallow being there for the memorial service. Dr. Sally at your service.

Then two days ago it started again. Creepy. This time when I googled it I discovered there are hundreds of people going through the same thing this month, and they say it's caused by Trader Joe's pine nuts. According to the posts I've been reading, it strikes about 24 hours after eating pine nuts, and can last a day to several weeks! Not everyone who eats the nuts gets the bitter bad, and it has no other related symptom. We had pesto two nights ago.

Here's a typical post.

Here are some twitter tweets:
Official name for pine-nuts-make-everything-I-eat-taste-bitter-for-weeks: Pine Flu. Feel free to panic. Bloggers everywhere are getting it!

The pine nuts on Flat Belly Diet make everything else I eat taste bitter and metallic. Didn't know this was a side effect of pine nuts!

The bitter metallic taste that i've had for the last 3 days apparently is caused by the ridiculous amount of pine nuts I ingested.


On and on like that. It's even in wikipedia now. They aren't even from China! They're "product of Korea, Russia or Vietnam."

9 comments:

Mean Jean said...

Pine flu. I'm going to sulk all week because I didn't think up the name.

What an annoying thing to get. I recommend sucking on red-hots and maybe watching The Andy Griffith Show reruns on Nick at Nite until it goes away.

Linda Davick said...

This post makes me very sad. I love pine nuts--that buttery-waxy taste is worth getting Pine Flu later.

Yes, Mean Jean. red-hots or Atomic Fireballs might work.

Sally said...

Red hots are not so easily obtained but they seem as if they might do the break through.
A supreme jelly donut yesterday was not supreme enough.

nasty,nasty.

Mimi Pond said...

Wow, Sally! Weird! Almost as weird as when someone told me I should take the nasal spray Zicam to ward off a cold. ZICAM DESTROYED MY SENSE OF SMELL FOR A YEAR!!!!!! I had an MRI. I saw an ear-nose-throat man. He gave me some other nasal spray. Nothin. Had to cook thanksgiving dinner for 14 people with no sense of taste or smell. Finally my acupuncturist brought it all back. I remember distinctly one day finally being able to smell newly-mown grass. What a breakthrough. Someone told me there was a giant class-action suit against Zicam, and it was all over the internet but I neglected to act on it. I will avoid Trader Joe Pine Nuts!

stray said...

This is wild! Who knew? Now I'm glad we don't have a Trader Joe's. Mimi, that's great your accupuncturist was able to get your sense of smell back!

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

That's wacky!
Who knew pine nuts had a dark side?
They seem so tasty, cute and innocent.
I wonder if it applies to all pine nuts, or, as you suggested, ones from certain sources?
When the funny taste goes away you may want to treat yourself to a box of Miracle Fruit Tablets Let one dissolve in your mouth and sour foods (green apples, grapefruit etc..) taste very sweet for the next half hour. It's weird!

Sally said...

Mimi, your story is really scary. No sense of smell is a tough one, and also dangerous. So incredible it could then be restored through acupuncture.

When I was little we had a cleaning lady named Enether. She said her mother gave her that name when she woke up from anesthesia and saw the ether bottle next to her.

Reason I mention it is she had no sense of smell, but I remember she was very fond of crullers with powdered sugar on them.

Not sure if it's all pine nuts, but I kept seeing mention of the exact Trader Joe's bag we have.

I'm wondering if they're safe to give to the chickens, who also love pine nuts.

Sally said...

ps Namowal those Miracle Fruit tablets are so weird to read about. Did you order them?

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

Yes I did. They work great on sour food (fruits especially) but didn't do anything for bitter food (like coffee). I hear it makes lemons sweet enough to eat, haven't tried one. Eating lemons sounds like a bad idea.