WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and SportsPuzzling mystery on effect of pine nuts on taste buds

Puzzling mystery on effect of pine nuts on taste buds

One morning, Ed Sherry's breakfast caused a taste sensation. "I tasted this very bitter taste, which I thought was odd, but I didn't think much of it. But then what happened was, is that, that bitter taste started to move forward and was, my entire mouth became very bitter and metallic," says Ed.

Breakfast wasn't the end of his ordeal. The foul flavor persisted. At the end of his rope, Ed scoured the Internet. "This is like I'm dying, this is, I'm scared, this is not, something's not right. And these people were saying, and we know what the answer is. The answer is pine nuts," says Ed.

Pine nuts - specifically Chinese pine nuts - that he ate a few days before the bitterness bit him.

"It's certainly possible that it was an allergic reaction of some sort to what was in the pine nuts, or that something else he ate around that same time," says Dr. Richard Doty.

Doctor Doty and others are puzzled by the pine mouth mystery, but he says an allergic reaction can wreak havoc on the olfactory system, and wreck your ability to sense flavor

Other possibilities include dysosmias or dysgeusias - essentially distorted smell or taste perceptions. Or the culprit could be a virus. "There are many viruses that can be there that don't have any other elements; you don't have to have a stuffy nose, and things of the sort, still can damage or alter the smell function," says Dr. Doty.

Whether this terrible taste was triggered by pine nuts, or if it's coincidental, is yet to be discovered. As for Ed, the normal tastes he "pined" for returned in about two weeks.

Doctors are truly stumped by this, but there's a lot of Internet chatter to support the idea that pine mouth might exist.

As for a guess, Doctor Doty suspects that the nuts may trigger an allergic reaction in some people that inflames the olfactory system, and even a tiny inflammation can affect a person's sense of flavor.