What's happened to my tastebuds and tongue?

October 16, 2012 1:58 AM

Why does my tongue feel furry and my tastebuds seem wonky after eating a salad??

I have just eaten a salad with cos lettuce, lebanese cucumber, salad onion, avocado and green beans and lemon juice. While I was eating it I thought it tasted a bit bitter and I couldn't make out the different tastes of each vegetable but put it down to the lemon juice playing with my tastebuds. Now 10 minutes afterwards I realise my tongue and the insides of my cheeks are furry feeling and a little numb on the surface like after I eat a lot of pineapple but even weirder is that my sense of taste is all over the place. Sweet things sort of taste salty and water tastes bitter!
Everything except the lettuce (which I washed) and the avocado I had also eaten last night with no effect.
Any ideas?

posted by soymilk to food & drink (10 answers total)

Have you eaten any pine nuts recently?
posted by pipeski at 2:56 AM on October 16, 2012

Failing that, I've noticed that raw onions have a similar effect on me - weird feeling in mouth, other things tasting wrong... although you generally know when you've eaten a lot of onions. If it's pine nuts, the unpleasantness can last a couple of weeks.
posted by pipeski at 3:13 AM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

I have this with even the tiniest amount of raw onion. It's annoying, because I quite like it. My dad has it with pine nuts.
posted by katrielalex at 3:22 AM on October 16, 2012

I blame it on the lemon.
posted by devnull at 5:48 AM on October 16, 2012

OAS
posted by Confess, Fletch at 6:05 AM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

yeah, I'm with Confess -- the only time I had a reaction like that, something in the food was going off and causing a reaction, of which the oral sensations were a byproduct. once it just caused me to avoid a particular fruit truck for a while, once it resulted in hives later that evening (but a reaction that passed, thankfully, in a few hours). hope you find nothing further.
posted by acm at 6:47 AM on October 16, 2012

Pine Nut Syndrome only happens with certain types of pines nuts (easiest rule is long = good, short = bad) but took a few days to kick in for me. I had actually called the state's consumer line to complain about bad tunafish from the night before, and out of the blue they asked about pine nuts. Have you eaten any in the past 7 days? For me it produces a feeling like carbonation, and foods tasted metallic at times, but mostly bitter. I did not notice it until I had something in the morning though, and then it lasted for a few days. Towards the end, as the effect was wearing off, it resembled what you are describing. BTW- my OAS is very different.
posted by jwells at 6:58 AM on October 16, 2012

there might have also been cilantro/coriander in there as well.
posted by Spumante at 9:02 AM on October 16, 2012

A lot of people report strange mouth-feel after eating foods that are high in oxalic acid. Spinach is the most common culprit, but wikipedia tells me that green beans and lettuce are also relatively high in oxalic acid.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:07 AM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

Thanks for all your answers, no pinenuts, no coriander, perhaps the salad onion but now I have put it down to the lemon!
The strangeness gradually disappeared after a few hours but was still there a little bit the next morning. I went through everything I had in the salad and ate it again and when it came to the lemon (still had the other half) there was a definite weirdness again. : /
posted by soymilk at 4:08 AM on October 19, 2012