Investigating cases of taste disturbance caused by pine nuts in Denmark.

Abstract: Exotic edible nuts are increasingly consumed in the Western world, especially as part of a raw food diet or as a healthy snack. Recently, a quality problem has arisen due to taste disturbance caused by some types of pine nuts. The taste disturbance results in a bitter and metallic taste, and is now recognised as pine nut syndrome. The syndrome occurs 1–2 days after the ingestion of pine nuts from inedible species, and symptoms last up to 2 weeks. This paper is based on a Danish case that resulted in identification of the source of the problematic pine nuts and their withdrawal from the Danish market.