Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Bitter after taste in mouth when I eat anything

Well today is the 3rd day running and almost anything that I eat, tastes REALLY bitter in my mouth. The best I can describe it is that the bitter after taste seems to occur towards the back of the tongue and it almost tastes as though I had taken a bite of a lemon peel. The bitter after taste is a lot more pronounced after I eat a chocolate or anything on the sweeter side.

Today being the 3rd day – I started getting worried that maybe it is some sort of a early warning signal that I was going to have a stroke – I thought maybe a part of my brain was not firing and responding to sweet foods touching the receptors on my tongue.

Did a quick search on Google for “Bitter aftertaste after eating anything”. Something that stood out to me was the number of pages that were returned referencing Pine Nuts. This fact must have jumped out at me – as I had recently discovered pine nuts and have been eating a ton of them. Here is an article in the Emergency Medicine that talks about this phenomena (“Taste disturbances after pine nut ingestion”).

I am not sure how far my taste disturbance is related to pine nut ingestion, but it just might be and I am going to stop eating them and see if the symptoms go away.

FYI, the pine nuts were bought from the whole sale bins at the Whole Food market. I am going to try and find out if the pine nuts were sourced from China or not (as the article suggests that Pine nuts from China might be the cause – or at least that 2 of the lots that caused such problems were from China).

Will report back if and when my “taste disturbance” goes away.

Wikipedia - Pine nut

SteadyHealth.com
"Bitter taste in mouth while eating".
"Sensation of bitter taste in mouth. What could it be?".

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Strange, I had the same aftertase experience so I googled it and found your post. I too have been eating pinenuts on salads recently!

Anonymous said...

An identical story happened to me!!!!

Anonymous said...

I also have the bitter aftertaste, and had pine nuts several days before I noticed it. Interestingly, some months ago I made and froze pesto with pine nuts (from a different supplier) and had no taste perversion then. I won't be eating them again!

Anonymous said...

I've had a bit of Sabra pine nut hummus this and past week - and started tasting bittness even as I do not eat hummus now. This did not happen before. Is this possible after such a small amout of nuts you get in hummus?

Kafeen said...

You only have a bitter taste to everything you eat when Pine nuts goes bad. It's in wikipedia. Here's the quote
"A small minority of pine nuts can cause taste disturbances, developing 1–3 days after consumption and lasting for days or weeks. A bitter, metallic taste is described. Though very unpleasant, there are no lasting effects. This phenomenon was first described in a scientific paper in 2001.[12] Some publications have made reference to this phenomenon as "pine mouth".[13] This is a relatively newly noticed phenomenon, which might be caused by the nuts spoiling and having gone rancid. It has been also hypothesised that this bitter side effect is caused by an allergy that some people may have to pine nuts, but this does not explain the recent appearance of this syndrome. Another theory attributes the phenomenon to nuts imported from China[14]. It has been hypothesised that the nut trees are absorbing something and passing it on to the nuts, or the nuts themselves are being treated with something before packaging. Metallic taste disturbance, known as metallogeusia, is reported 1–3 days after ingestion, being worse on day 2 and lasting for up to 2 weeks. Cases are self-limited and resolve without treatment.[15]"

Phil Dore said...

Incredible! I have had the same taste issues, a secondary bitterness at the back of tongue more noticeable after sweeter morsels but triggered by everything I eat or drink. I have had it for three days now. I ate a favourite pasta dish with a generous quantity of those most delightful 'pine nuts' and in a pesto dressing, toasted pepper strips black olives and feta cheese. a splendid combination...I absolutely love it. I do obsess about not leaving a single pine nut! I have been enjoying this recipe for years but had unpleasant consequence. Is this an end to this particular delight? I hope not, someone please tell me it is a one off dodgy contaminated batch; that causes no lasting physical harm.