Posts Tagged ‘Google’

Pine Nuts — Bad Snack Choice 1-31-12

I used to love pine nuts.  I consider them a mystery food which made eating them something exotic.  Though I assume they’re a natural food, I really don’t know what they are or where they come from; the bottom of a pine cone?  I recently discovered a plastic sack of them in the pantry.  I tossed about 30 handfuls of them into my mouth over about five minutes as I watched a Lakers basketball game on TV.

The next morning, I awoke with a powerful metallic taste in my mouth.  Nothing I ate could get rid of it. Over the day, that metallic taste became the focus of my existence.  Everything I ate tasted horrible and the same. I was no longer experiencing the Epicurean adventure I expect every meal and snack to be.

A day later, with the metallic taste still in my mouth, my only thought was that something was terribly wrong with me.  I didn’t tell my wife, but she should have known something was up because I was more snappy with her than I had been in a long time.  In my mind, I ran over the list of imagined horrible things this could be, and quietly scared the crap out of myself.

Never the less, I didn’t want to spend the money on a doctor visit even though I was convinced that this was serious.  Finally, I confided to my wife my potentially urgent medical condition.

Knowing me as she has for the last 10 years, my wife didn’t offer any support for this new mystery ailment but she did give me the stink eye.  She has held my hand through other hypochondriac medical issues before.  She instructed me, in a tone only a wife can give, “type into Google metallic taste in my mouth.” and “food tastes horrible.”   Just thinking about the money I’d save by not going to the doctor lifted my spirits.

The answer was there alright.  Surprisingly, I’m not the only one who thought eating a bag of pine nuts was a good idea.  According to posts on the medical answer sites, eating that many pine nuts can ruin your taste buds for weeks.

I don’t know what relieved me more, finding out that there were scores of fellow idiots who eat as many pine nuts as me, or that nothing was wrong with me.  Either way, my outlook immediately improved, even though the metallic taste stayed on for another week.  Armed with the knowledge that I had blown out my own taste buds I ignored the awful taste in my mouth, turned on the TV to a Clippers basketball game, laid down on my couch and ate two tasteless king sized Milky Way Bars.