Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Pine Mouth


image randomly stolen from the internet following a google search. uncredited, so sue me.

"WHAT?"You may be asking yourself is pine mouth?



It is not some after-effect of chewing on a pinecone or a post holiday sydrome brought about by humping the Christmas tree. It may sound like a joke or a made-up phrase or some sort of sister to the dreaded pot smoker's cotton mouth, but I assure you that pine mouth is none of these things and is yet very serious business.

I will share my story with you today. Hopefully, my tale of bitter whoa will help to spare you from the agony that I suffered. Like countless others, I fell victim to this dreaded condition for almost two weeks, just in time for christmas dinner. Our stories are countless. Many of us suffer in silence, in the shadows. Today I step into the light to speak of my tribulation.

A few weeks ago, We received an early Christmas gift from my mother. It was a cuisinart griddler, a great tool in the making of panini, the Italian grilled glamour sandwich. I was so exciited that I ran to whole foods and bought a bunch of pine nuts to make pesto along with an assortment of cheeses, sun dried tomatoes and ecoutrement to immerse myself body and soul into the ancient art of panini.

I should mention that the bag of pinenuts I purchased was rather large. When I got home, I began ecstatically chopping up the garlic, basil and pine nuts for my pesto (using this recipe). I was hungry, which is a constant state for me. My pet tape worm felix requires constant attention, and I generally oblige. I shoved a handful of pinenuts into my mouth and gobbled them down. One handful led to two, led to three, led to....well, six. Ok. I'm a pig. I gorged myself on pinenuts and then ate a panini with lots of pesto on it. K and Laura did not consume the quantity of pine nuts that I did, but they did enjoy the luxurious lusciousness of my homemade pesto on their sandwiches.

In an ideal world my story would end here, with a full belly and a happily ever after and maybe a Post script titled "midnight bacon snack". Alas, dear readers, my story begins two days after my flirtation with panini and my glutenous mouth affair with the temptress known as pine nut.

On Thursday morning (2 days after panini) I woke up and grabbed my morning cup of coffee. When I took my first sip, it tasted, well, off. It was bitter and rotten tasting. I just thought perhaps my corner coffee shop had made a bad batch or something. Lunch time rolled around and I took a bight of my lunch. It tasted bitter, mettalic and rotten. I began to worry. What was wrong with me?

I contacted my doctor A.K.A. a google search of my symptoms...sudden bitter taste in mouth. Oddly enough an article about pine nuts came up. I read of the phenomenon known as pine mouth. Multiple people 1-3 days after ingesting pine nuts experienced a bitter metalic taste with all food and drink lasting for up to 2 weeks. I looked for a remedy and found that not only does no one know the cause of pine mouth but there is not cure except to just let it run its course. I also discovered that this phenomenon seemed to be specific for the most part to pine nuts grown in china.

I was confused because the pine nuts I bought were Whole Foods own brand. Surely Whole Foods with its whole organic produce philosophy would not be importing its pine nuts from a country with the most questionable farming practices in the world? right?
I called Whole Foods and was told that all their own label foods including the pine nuts were grown here in the United States. I didn't take their word for it though. I went into the store to double check this and surely enough MADE IN CHINA was on a sticker on the back of the pine nuts.

I went online and found multiple articles on pine mouth and chinese pine nuts and like the crazy cat lady that I am, I stapled and paperclipped all the articles and walked back into whole foods and asked to speak to the manager. He of course looked at me like I was crazy and I insisted that he look at my documentation on pine mouth and that the pine nuts should have a warning or be removed from the shelves. He said he would forward the information to their corporate headquarters.

Continuing on my rampage of outrage, I wrote and email to corporate Whole Foods. Almost immediately I received a form letter response that was specific to pine mouth. Whole Foods was completely aware that they were selling a product that could make everything their customer ate for up to 2 weeks taste bitter. Unsatisfied by this form letter, I sent an email of outrage and a request that they warn customers of this issue or find another source for their pine nuts. Their response was basically that I could return the pine nuts for a refund and that they were sorry.

I now have a boycott on whole foods. Any company that would knowingly sell tainted pine nuts and have a form letter prepared to fire off at angry customers is not a company that I will ever again support with my business.

My pine mouth lasted for two weeks. The only things that tasted normal were scotch and broccoli, but I forced myself to eat the bitter tasting things instead of becoming an alcoholic cruciferous vegetable addict. Actually I already am a bit of a cruciferous vegetable addict and with the many health benefits of being one, why not?

So, consider this your warning. Something strange is going on with pine nuts. The FDA is investigating it and nobody knows what causes pine mouth, but believe me, you don't want to have it.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Martha

http://smallpet.info

Simon said...

I'm now into day four of my own personal "pine mouth" trauma and I can't tell you how releaved I am that I know the cause. Up until yetserday morning I thought I was dying - at least now I know what's happening to me. The only thing I can drink is strong coffee - wine is just horrendous! Pine Nuts are off the menu for good!

Courtney du Plessis said...

My husband just got pine mouth last night and me this morning. I thought maybe he was trying to poison me and was just making up a story about him having a bitter taste in his mouth to disguise his plot to poison me... ha ha!! So I also contacted my dr. aka yahoo search, and lucky me, my husband is not killing me slowly i just have pine mouth!! It sucks. Seriously. Lets start a march or demonstration to abolish pine nuts! and if someone disagrees just make them eat them and then drink red wine 2 days later for a week straight!

Unknown said...

woah! I just came back from Wholefoods having had a very unsatisfactory argument with the store and bulk-buy managers about exactly this issue! I was furious that they would not print any kind of warning sign when my "pine mouth" has been terrible now for over a week. I was outraged, quite frankly, at the appalling level of customer care. The pine nuts were indeed from China, although at first their bulk-buy manager denied it. The would not listen to the evidence or read any of the information which has only linked RANCID pine nuts to the problem. I said to them, "if somebody were to buy a rancid product from your store and get sick, what would you do?". They refused to answer the question, saying it was an altogether different scenario. But that was blatently my scenario. I bought ingredients for a salad innocently one day, that gave me the awful metal taste for 7 days and counting, and Wholefoods were simply not interested.

Should we start a petition? Or should I at least reference your letters in a letter of my own to their head office about the problem. People have a right to be warned. This is really not a joke to experience, it's awful. I'm almost tempted to find an attorney here in California that might approach them for me. Nice to find solidarity with you though! thank you for your blog. love the internet. used to love pine nuts and wholefoods too

Unknown said...

woah! I just came back from Wholefoods having had a very unsatisfactory argument with the store and bulk-buy managers about exactly this issue! I was furious that they would not print any kind of warning sign when my "pine mouth" has been terrible now for over a week. I was outraged, quite frankly, at the appalling level of customer care. The pine nuts were indeed from China, although at first their bulk-buy manager denied it. The would not listen to the evidence or read any of the information which has only linked RANCID pine nuts to the problem. I said to them, "if somebody were to buy a rancid product from your store and get sick, what would you do?". They refused to answer the question, saying it was an altogether different scenario. But that was blatently my scenario. I bought ingredients for a salad innocently one day, that gave me the awful metal taste for 7 days and counting, and Wholefoods were simply not interested.

Should we start a petition? Or should I at least reference your letters in a letter of my own to their head office about the problem. People have a right to be warned. This is really not a joke to experience, it's awful. I'm almost tempted to find an attorney here in California that might approach them for me. Nice to find solidarity with you though! thank you for your blog. love the internet. used to love pine nuts and wholefoods too

Anonymous said...

Well it's a weird little community of which to be a part, and I joined it 5 days ago. Praise be that the Internet contained the explanation. Why isn't it common knowledge that these delicious little treats can affect you so? The brackish taste is now taking longer to appear after a mouthful of food, and from that I take comfort. Lemon juice, reliably good; beer, sort of ok (shame that I'm a wine drinker); black coffee sort of ok. everything else bar water, awful. Pine nuts? Never again, however tasty they are and whatever the slim odds of this happening once more.

Robert German said...

For those on twitter, This article has been added to #pinemouth

Anonymous said...

Don't know wen all these comments were posted, but I developed this myself after making a salad with Pine Nuts also purchased at Whole Foods in a big bulk bag. The EU has known about the chinese using counterfeit pine nuts from their "white pine" tree since 2001 and have banned them from the EU. It seems the bitter taste persists because the amino acid in the poorly stored and consequently rancid nuts from china has become chemically bound to your taste buds.

I think we should file suit with the FDA to get this product banned from import like the EU did. Is anyone a lawyer out there?

I ate them on Thannksgiving and then again a week later, so I don't how long it will be for me, but it is good to know that it isn't my liver...although who knows what the chinese put in food or what chemicals they use to extract the nut. After all these are the people who knowingly poisoned infant formula and lied about it.

Anonymous said...

My cure or remedy: Gargle salt water. It seems to have worked for me. I dissolved a good spoonful of salt into some luke warm water and gargled for about 30 seconds 3 times. The taste came back when I ate again, but it was milder. I gargled salt water again a few hours later and it got better. Not completely gone, but greatly reduced the awful taste in my mouth.

Anonymous said...

Trying the salt water right now. It's the first possible
solution I've come across.
I've only had 'Pine Mouth' since last night and am hoping not to have this terrible bitter taste in my mouth for another 2 weeks! It's awful.
Orange juice by the way was by far the worst so far. It tasted like ground aspirin.

And the salt water gargle seems to have helped, a little.

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