It started about a day ago and every time I eat the taste overpowers the taste of the food. It's a drag! I thought perhaps it was a sickness I was coming down with. When Monica said she also had this metal taste we assumed it was something we we're breathing, or eating. We Googled "metal taste in mouth", and up came several webpages devoted to this phenomenon. After reading a number of web pages with various reasons for a metal taste, diabetes, cancer, iron deficiencies, etc., I came across this page. There between kidney disease and copper overdose was "pine nuts". Just a couple of days earlier Monica had bought a jar of pine nuts, which is a treat for us as we don't usually eat them. They are commonly used in pesto. The day after eating the nuts we started to have this metallic taste in our mouth. I looked up pine nut at Wikipedia and there was an entry on "Risks of eating pine nuts". According to Wikipedia, "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. Some publications have made reference to this phenomenon as "pine mouth". The Nestle Research Centre has hypothesized that a particular species of Chinese pine nuts, Pinus armandii (Chinese Pine), is the cause of the problem. The suspect species of pine nuts are smaller, duller, and more rounded than typical pine nuts ." Fortunately the article continues with, "cases are self-limited and resolve without treatment." Sometimes it takes days or a week to get rif of the taste, however.
Monica just called from home and the nuts in question are imported from China. According to NPR news the FDA has only recorded about 50 cases since 2009. NPR news had a link to a Facebook page for this. It's here, and called "Damn you Pine Nuts, and has over 517 members who have experienced this problem!
Is this a case of someone trading in cheaper, non-traditional nuts from China? That the nut's are imported from China is the common thread of most of the people at the Facebook page. They we're bought at Trader Joe's, Albertson's, Wal- Mart, etc. Why are these nuts still being sold? Where is the FDA on this? Thank goodness for The Internet, and people caring enough to post their symptoms, start a Facebook page, and web page about this. Beware of any imported from China pine nut's, or pesto made from pine nut's. Yuck!