LOL. I rather go eat something out of the woods and fight the squirrels for them than get them from China.

Today was my first day without bitterness, finally. That makes six days of tasting bitterness with every bite and sip.

I'm not sure my taste is back to normal but at least my food isn't completely ruined anymore.

Hmmm... was it a good way to lose weight?

No! Because my food was so unsatisfying I kept trying to find something that tasted good. I also kept thinking that I could wash it down, drown it out or something.

And I spoke too soon. I'm getting a mild bitter taste again this morning. At least it's only mild today.

I checked with the grocery manager at the store where I shop for produce and bulk items. His store's pine nuts are from China, and he knows what "pine nut mouth" is, but the store's part of a chain, and he has no control over product sources.

Where in the U.S. can one get pine nuts from healthy sources?

I think you have to shop around a lot. One thing I've learned in my reading is that only some people are affected by the Chinese nuts. Most people who eat the Chinese nuts do not develop pine mouth.

I personally suspect that those of us who become affected are super-tasters, because I know that I'm a super-taster. But I haven't read that anywhere.

For once in my life, I'm glad my sense of taste/smell is deficient.

Bloody hell. Pine mouth again.

I think I must be stupid. I can't believe I've done this to myself a second time.

Last time (a year and a half ago) the pine nuts were purchased at Trader Joe's pre-toasted and they had been in the pantry for 6-8 months. Even though they weren't expired or rancid I assumed that the oils had gotten oxidized and that was the cause of the problem.

This week I bought pine nuts at Trader Joe's raw and used them immediately. About 24 hours after eating pesto made with them, food and drink began to taste bitter. They don't taste bad themselves. The pesto was delicious. Something happens later. I don't even think it's residual gunk left on the tongue that causes the problem. Because the bitterness begins a day later I think it's something systemic. I've read about this all over the web and we've all tried scraping out tongues, brushing our tongues, oil-pulling, mouthwash, everything we can think of to cleanse our mouths of this foul taste. It takes a couple weeks to subside. I think it's got to be in the bloodstream or maybe the nerve endings are affected or something. Does that make sense?

Fortunately, my case of pine mouth is milder this time. It was much, much worse last time. If I hadn't experienced this before I might not have put it together and figured out what the problem was. I'd bet that there are people all over the country who can't figure out why everything they eat and drink tastes bitter and never identify the problem as pine mouth from pesto they ate a couple days ago.

I ate pine nuts for decades without incident. There were even times that I bought enormous bags of them at Costco and snacked on them by the handful. This worldwide phenomenon of pine mouth began in 2008-2009 when Chinese pine nuts hit the market. My Trader Joe's package says, "Product of Russia, Korea, and Vietnam." From what I've read a lot of food gets re-packaged and re-sold fraudulently. I suspect that happened in this case.

Maybe I'm due for a week of fasting.

From now on I hope to remember to make pesto from walnuts.

I stopped eating pine nuts ever since this happened to you, Allison. Yech! I would hate that!

I had this happen too! I'm in Australia so it was a different brand. When I researched it at the time (I found it from a web search of "why does everything taste like ****)(there was something specific I thought it all tasted like, I can't remember what now though) I learnt that it was the pine nuts from specific pine trees grown in China, that they would harvest from when the crops of edible type nuts were falling short of quota.

It was really awful. Every sip of liquid, every mouthful of food made it flare up again. As long as I wasn't eating, it was low key. One sip of drink though, and ... bleah!!!! And there is nothing you can do about it. It's not a coating in your mouth or anything, you can't wash it away or drown it out. It was at least a week before I could say it was definitely gone.

I haven't eaten pine nuts since. I won't risk it!

I was clearly far from the only person in Australia to get burned:
http://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au...and-pine-mouth/

(Sorry to answer an old thread - the pine mouth problem was apparently so traumatic that I can't NOT comment on it!)

Not pine nuts per se, but on the topic of foods from China; avoid Seville's canned pumpkin in the low cost grocers. It looks like firmer brand name on opening (and thus promising) but bakes/cooks up to a very odd/weird smell and taste.

I didn't realize I had purchased pumpkin from China until the weirdness caused me to go online and look. A lesson in reading labels, to be sure, since I only read as far as being packed in Washington thus missing the next line of originating from China.

On topic, I grew up on property with piñon (pinyon) pine trees we had transplanted which matured before I left home/the property was sold. Talk about tasty nuts! I miss the southwest sometimes, especially pre-Bark Beetle.