At breakfast on Monday, I had some melon. It was ripe and smelled great but it had a bitter, lingering aftertaste. So did my tea. So did my protein shake. And everything that day. Troubling, no doubt.
Next day, with the bitter taste still strong, Cynthia googled “bitter taste” and stumbled into a ton of threads and comments about people with the same experience — one or two days after having eaten pine nuts. We had had salad with pine nuts on Saturday and Sunday. Very weird. I’ve eaten pine nuts hundreds of times with no problem. But that was the same experience all these people had had. Check out this blog: pinchmysalt
Even Wikipedia has an entry referring to taste disturbances (Pine Nuts) and a reference to a 2001 scientific article European Journal of Emerg Med. Who knew? Talk about the information superhighway!
People are searching for the “why” and are postulating all sorts of things about: pine nuts from China; cadmium content; rancidity and oxidation, but no one knows the why of it. And there seems to be no suggestion of long term problems.
It’s been four full days now, and the bitter taste is nearly gone. Seems like it’ll be complelely gone by tomorrow. But this has got me thinking and feeling unsettled. Obviously, we are all aware of the problems and effects that chemicals and foods and other substances, by natural exposure and otherwise, can have. But when everything you eat tastes like horrible, it brings it home in a big way.
If eating a dozen or so pine nuts can have that kind of physiological effect, what other physical effect were those pine nuts having? And what about other raw, whole foods? Good and bad. Makes the discussion of the value of superfoods — blueberries and antioxidants, etc — have real impact. Maybe the positive effects, as well as negative effects, are not simply minuscule over decades — maybe they are profound and immediate.
And what about other substances that are not as generally benign as whole foods? What about food additives? Artificial sweeteners? Preservatives to “maintain freshness” and a host of others? What about untested shampoo or lotion ingredients? What about atmospheric particulates? Air pollution?
Maybe pine nuts will turn out to have been a “canary in the mineshaft” as far as how I organize my life. I was already eating a relatively clean diet — almost no processed food, lots of whole foods, and raw foods, and superfoods. But a bitter taste for four or five days will give you pause. Time to reflect and examine. Keep it in the consciousness even after it leaves my mouth.
I can always do better. How about you?
Later.
Tags: artificial sweeteners, bitter taste, blueberries, food additives, pine nuts, preservatives, processed foods, raw foods, shampoo ingredients, superfoods, whole foods
Just found your blog, and I am replying for the first time to a blog, so bear with me. I too am having that same taste in my mouth. It started last Wednesday, while I was eating blueberries, strawberries and bananas in my cereal. Had pine nuts probable the day or two before. More than a dozen. I don’t get them too often so I had more. I have to ask my son if he ate the rest, as to the fact that I can’t locate the bag to see where it was from. Thanks for the info, I originally thought that it might have been a bitter blueberry or something? I called my doctor and got a nurse who told me that it could have been a bitter blueberry, but I didn’t mention the pine nuts.KT
Hi Kent, My bitter taste is completely gone now — but I’m reluctant to eat pine nuts again. Just don’t care enough for them to take the risk. Good luck to you.