pine mouth?

This is post isn’t about bento, but it is related to a bento I made, the chinese omelette bento.

After eating this bento, the next morning I noticed I had this unpleasant bitter slightly metallic taste in my mouth. It lasted for the whole of that day and was still hanging around this morning.

I was beginning to worry. I thought maybe, after recently boasting that I have never had any dental work done, and that I always get a full bill of health after visiting the dentist, that I had a cavity or an abbess in my mouth or something, but was oddly not experiencing any pain.

I mentioned something at work and a colleague suggested that I could have a sinus infection, which is plausible, as I have allergies that cause nasal congestion.

When I got home the taste was still there, so I decided to Google the problem and see what I could find (a hazardous endeavour I know...) A few of the results pointed to reflux, one even suggested I had mouth cancer (a fair bit of a stretch).

Then I noticed one article, mentioning something called pine mouth.

A phenomenon where, after eating pine nuts one experiences an unpleasant bitter taste in their mouth during and after eating or drinking, a problem that can last up to three weeks!

This all relates to the chinese omelette bento because the brussel sprouts in said bento, had toasted pine nuts sprinkled on them. These tiny, tasty nuts are the culprit!

After doing a bit of reading on the subject, I haven’t found a definitive reason why some people experience the problem or why it doesn’t happen every time one eats pine nuts. Some have suggested oxidisation, or a particular variety of nuts, but there is a lot of conjecture.

I haven’t found any treatments for the malady either, so here’s hoping it doesn’t hang around too long.