Dammit. I read about this a year ago here. Pine Nuts imported from China have been causing "pine nut mouth," a condition which causes everything you eat to taste bitter. People have been eating pine nuts in Italy for centuries without this problem but once less expensive pine nuts from China became available companies began to import them and "pine nut mouth syndrome" began. It appears to come from the Chinese Red Pine and Chinese White Pine.

I've eaten pine nuts for a lifetime and never had this problem, but a couple days ago I started eating some pine nuts from Trader Joe's and now I have "pine nut mouth." Everything tastes metallic and bitter.

Anyone know a home remedy for this? Google searches suggest activated charcoal tablets and aloe vera juice. I'm leery of mainstream advice. I find better advice here. Any ideas? Does activated charcoal sound like a reasonable thing to try? I'm more suspicious of the aloe vera juice idea.

Oh no! I'm sorry to hear that. I almost bought some pine nuts the other day, from Trader Joe's too. You should let them know their pine nuts have given you "the mouth".

Horrible! My sympthies.... I have been seeing pinones/pine nuts for sale lately ~ roadside stands. Now I count myself lucky for not having any cash to stop and buy!

It might be that roadside stands would be okay, if they got them locally. Sounds like it's the ones imported from China that are a problem.

Everything on the web says the ones from China are the problem. I checked the label of these (just now) and it says Korea and Russia. Maybe Korea is close enough to have the same tree species? Maybe they were grown in China but resold by Korea and Russia?

They do look a little different: they're very small.

I know that roadside stands sometimes resell produce that was not grown locally. This has been proven at farmer's markets over and over. Someone will buy cases of produce grown outside the country at Sam's Club and then resell it at a local farmer's market as their own. Buyer beware.

The FDA is tracking this too, so you might want to report the issue to them as well. One of my google searches led to that. But definitely tell Trader Joe's so they can take them off the shelves so that others don't end up with the problem.

I haven't got it as bad as some reports I've read on the web. Last night I ate carpaccio; there was a bitterness. I thought maybe my Dijon mustard had gotten old. Then I ate a low carb cupcake that I made (with beans!); it was bitter. I thought it might be my stevia. This morning I ate one of Nancy's Thai omelet; it was bitter. I though it might be my fish sauce. But I've been using the same jar of Dijon and the same bottle of stevia and the same bottle of fish sauce for some time without incident.

I finally put it together: I used this bag of pine nuts from TJ's starting a couple days ago and then overate them last night.

The bitterness is lingering in my mouth but it's not unbearable like some people have described.

From this I will take a lesson to use extreme moderation with pine nuts! (I have alredy learned this lesson with pineapple!)
This is a possible reason pine nuts are used with herbs n such in pesto....just to add the delicious bacon-like flavor! Anyway, poor you!

I don't think so, Cloudy. Pine nuts haven't been causing pine mouth until pretty recently.

They think cooking (toasting) might neutralize the issue too.

Nancy's right. People have been eating pine nuts for centuries without incident. "Pine nut mouth syndrome" only appeared 2-3 years ago.

Trust me, no amount of basil would fix this. They were toasted, too.

My case is improving somewhat.

Wow - that's not good. Thanks for the head's up!!

I don't eat pine nuts.....but if TJ's is selling nuts from china.. I won't be buying nuts/seeds from them again.

China's the reason dog food companies got poisoned. Guess we're next.

LOL. Someone got busted here for something similar. They were trying to sell some fruit that doesn't even grow around here.

Oh gosh! Here I was excited to see a roadside stand... I live in San Diego near the Mexican border so I assume the "pinones" were from Mex. What exactly does a pine nut tree look like??

LOL! It's a pine tree. The nuts are inside the cone. I have quite a few pine trees in my neighborhood, on really hot days you can hear the cones cracking open. I suppose the nuts drop out then.