Pine Nuts, Pine Mouth

Pine nuts are delicious. It’s too bad that in recent years, almost every brand of pine nuts is imported from China, and China has been sending us pine nuts that cause a bizarre reaction called “pine mouth.” A day or two after eating these tainted nuts, your sense of taste is muted (or even absent) and you can taste nothing but a bitter, metallic tinge.

Scientists continue to be stymied by what causes pine mouth, most likely because they don’t care. “Sorry that your whole mouth tastes like hell, but I have to go feed a rabbit Zoloft until it dies,” they say.