Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what Will? What's that game? When I say brazil nuts,
Speaker 2: is there a specific country that comes to mind for you?
Speaker 2: Call me crazy, but I feel like there should be
Speaker 2: an obvious answer to this one. I don't know if
Speaker 2: this is a trick question, but I'm gonna guess Brazil. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it is a trick question. The answer I'm looking for
Speaker 2: was Bolivia, No, which actually produces almost as many brazil
Speaker 2: nuts as Brazil. Together, the two countries are responsible for
Speaker 2: ninety percent of the world's brazil nut crop, and Bolivia
Speaker 2: exports more of the processed and shelled nuts than Brazil.
Speaker 3: So if I go buy a back of trail mix
Speaker 3: with brazil nuts in it, I'm probably eating Bolivia nuts.
Speaker 2: M That's right, all right? So how come Brazil gets
Speaker 2: all the glory here? I mean, as with most things,
Speaker 2: blame the conquistadors, right. So, brazil nut trees are native
Speaker 2: to the Amazon, particularly Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru, and there's
Speaker 2: evidence that indigenous people ate the nuts as many as
Speaker 2: eleven thousand years ago. So when Europeans arrived in the
Speaker 2: early fifteen hundreds. They called their landing place Terra do Brazil,
Speaker 2: a reference to another tree the brazil Would and as
Speaker 2: they made their way across South America, they discovered these
Speaker 2: huge trees with big, delicious nuts, which they began calling
Speaker 2: chestnuts from Brazil what else? And one of the first
Speaker 2: European references to brazil nuts comes from Juan Alvarez Maldonado,
Speaker 2: a Spanish conquistador who relied on them to fuel his
Speaker 2: troops during an expedition through Peru. And later Dutch traders
Speaker 2: began impoort brazil nuts to Europe, where they became a
Speaker 2: popular treat at Christmas time, and from there they made
Speaker 2: their way to the US. But despite the fact that
Speaker 2: Brazil can't claim a monopoly on the nut and Bolivia
Speaker 2: produces a ton of them, the name just stuck.
Speaker 3: It does feel like the kind of thing that a
Speaker 3: really savvy marketing expert could help them solve.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's a branding problem, really yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean they just need a good slogan, like you
Speaker 3: can't spell brazil nut without Bolivia, you know.
Speaker 2: I feel like, actually, that's it. I think I nailed it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's keep brainstorming that one. In the meantime, though, today
Speaker 2: we have nine weird and wonderful facts about nuts and
Speaker 2: things that aren't technically nuts, but for all intents and
Speaker 2: purposes are nuts, like the brazil nut, which, yes we
Speaker 2: know it's a seed. We'll get into all that and more.
Speaker 2: So let's dive in.
Speaker 3: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 2: I'm Will Pearson.
Speaker 3: And because Mango couldn't be here today, we do miss you, Mango.
Speaker 2: Hope you're having fun. Our old pal Gabe Luzier is
Speaker 2: here with me instead. Gabe, it's always so good to
Speaker 2: see you. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3: And over there in the booth shotgunning a can of
Speaker 3: mixed nuts and wearing a T shirt that says, hold on,
Speaker 3: let me make sure I'm getting this right. It says
Speaker 3: fancy nuts for a fancy man. Dylan, you never let
Speaker 3: us down. It's our pal and producer, Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 2: Ah that Dylan so fancy, so fancy, All right, Gabe.
Speaker 3: Well, before we go any further, I think we should
Speaker 3: get ahead of all the emails and comments that people
Speaker 3: are composing in their heads right now.
Speaker 2: You saw it coming. At the top of the show.
Speaker 3: We said this was an episode about nuts, and then
Speaker 3: we started by talking about brazil nuts, which, as you mentioned,
Speaker 3: are actually seeds. I feel like we're gonna have to
Speaker 3: say that repeated that we do get that, and this
Speaker 3: is going to be a recurring issue in this episode,
Speaker 3: so let's just get ahead of it and talk about
Speaker 3: it now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So here we go. The botanical definition of
Speaker 2: a nut is a dry, hard fruit with a single
Speaker 2: kernel inside a shell that doesn't split open when it matures.
Speaker 2: So this narrow definition excludes things like almonds, cashews, pine nuts,
Speaker 2: brazil nuts, even walnuts, lots of things you know which
Speaker 2: have nuts in the name. Walnuts in particular, are somewhere
Speaker 2: between a drup and a nut, so not quite And
Speaker 2: for the purposes of today's episode, we're using nut in
Speaker 2: the colloquial or culinary sense, meaning if you'd find it
Speaker 2: in a bin labeled nuts at the grocery store, we're
Speaker 2: calling it a nut. That seems fair enough, all right.
Speaker 3: Well, now that we've got that cleared up, let's move
Speaker 3: on to our next fact here, which concerns one of
Speaker 3: my favorite nuts, which is the pistachio. In fact, I
Speaker 3: have already eaten a handful of pistaschias today, I'm happy
Speaker 3: to report.
Speaker 2: So did you get caught up in the Dubai chocolate craze?
Speaker 2: Gabe A little bit. Yeah, I think the the high
Speaker 2: cost of the chocolate bars kind of curbed that a
Speaker 2: little bit, but I will admit I gave into temptation.
Speaker 2: I had to try it out, and yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: pretty good pistachios hard to go wrong. Did the same thing.
Speaker 2: I'm a cheap chocolate eater.
Speaker 3: But it was funny, like you knew the craze was
Speaker 3: in fact a craze when you started seeing them at
Speaker 3: the checkout counter, like at your local convenience store. That's
Speaker 3: when I knew it had gone pretty far. But anyway,
Speaker 3: long before pistachios were associated with trendy candy, they were
Speaker 3: associated with red food dye.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. I remember seeing red pistachios in the
Speaker 2: store when I was a kid, and you know, I
Speaker 2: would beg my mom for him. I insisted that they
Speaker 2: tasted better and she was like, no, that's just red dye.
Speaker 2: But I always wondered, you know why they did that.
Speaker 3: Well, to find the answer to this, we actually have
Speaker 3: to go back to the nineteen twenties, so over the years,
Speaker 3: there have been different claims about who first died pistachios red,
Speaker 3: and of course why they did that. But having spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time reading.
Speaker 2: About pistachios this past week, I'm choosing to believe the
Speaker 2: story put forward by a family owned Detroit based nut
Speaker 2: company called Jermac. They've been around since nineteen twenty four,
Speaker 2: and according to their official story, founder Frank Jermack Senior,
Speaker 2: was the first person to come up with the idea
Speaker 2: of dying pistachios red. So he did this for two reasons.
Speaker 3: So first of all, back then, almost all pistachios sold
Speaker 3: in the US were imported from Iran and Irani and
Speaker 3: pistachios have these reddish husks that discolor the shells during
Speaker 3: the roasting process, so red dye covered that up. Plus
Speaker 3: it had the added benefit of making pistachios maybe a
Speaker 3: little bit more eye catching, I guess which was really
Speaker 3: important here, because Germak began selling them in these penny
Speaker 3: vending machines. He gave his bright red pistachios the brand
Speaker 3: name red Lip, and during the Great Depression they became
Speaker 3: popular as a cheap, nutrient dense snack. So for decades
Speaker 3: Jermak dominated the US pistachio business. To put it in perspective,
Speaker 3: a nineteen seventy three Detroit Free Press story noted that
Speaker 3: of the eight thousand tons of pistachios processed in the
Speaker 3: United States that year, Germac handled five thousand of those.
Speaker 2: That is fascinating. But you know, now that I think
Speaker 2: about it, I can't remember the last time I saw
Speaker 2: a red pistachios for sale, Like, why did the stop?
Speaker 3: I'm the same way, Gabe. Actually, it was one of
Speaker 3: those things. I'd really not thought about it until we
Speaker 3: started talking about nuts this week. But it was a
Speaker 3: gradual change in response to market supply and consumer preferences.
Speaker 3: So a lot of people didn't like the way the
Speaker 3: red dye stained their fingers and their clothes. And in
Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies the California pistachio industry just took off,
Speaker 3: and it was these domestic nuts that didn't have the
Speaker 3: same discoloration issues of the important ones. And that was
Speaker 3: a good thing because since the nineteen nineties many consumers
Speaker 3: wanted to avoid artificial food coloring.
Speaker 2: But if you.
Speaker 3: Misread pistachios, or if you're curious and want to try
Speaker 3: some Germak does sell them now under the name Holiday Red,
Speaker 3: and they get their brilliant hue from a beat powder.
Speaker 2: So there's actually no dye needed to create these, all right, Yeah, no,
Speaker 2: no excuse not to reacquaint myself. Then that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: But okay, that was a you know, a fascinating cultural
Speaker 2: journey through the recent past. But now let's go back
Speaker 2: thousands of years to the heyday of the Silk Road.
Speaker 2: You up for that, absolutely, all right. So a Purdue
Speaker 2: University researcher named Keith Weiste discovered a connection between the
Speaker 2: spread of languages across Asia and the humble walnut. So
Speaker 2: Wisti is a research geneticist who worked with the USDA
Speaker 2: Forest Service to study the genetic makeup of different trees,
Speaker 2: including walnuts. He and a team were analyzing samples from
Speaker 2: native walnut forests across Asia when they realized that many
Speaker 2: languages in the region had similar words for walnut. For example,
Speaker 2: in Kazakh, Kurghiz, and Uzbek it's yongok, which may some
Speaker 2: sense because these are all Turkic languages. But the more
Speaker 2: closely they looked at languages, maps and walnut DNA, the
Speaker 2: more patterns began to emerge. Like genetically speaking, it turns
Speaker 2: out that walnuts in eastern Iran are closely related to
Speaker 2: walnut trees in the Himalayas. So that's a line running
Speaker 2: almost due east to west, which is not a pattern
Speaker 2: you'd see if a tree spread organically. So left to
Speaker 2: their own devices, trees spread in concentric patterns as they
Speaker 2: gradually scatter seeds, not straight lines like we're seeing here.
Speaker 2: So by overlaying maps of walnut gene pools and major languages,
Speaker 2: the researchers concluded that the trees didn't spread by accident.
Speaker 2: They were planted by traders traveling along the Silk Road,
Speaker 2: making them the first known example of a forest station
Speaker 2: or planned establishment of tree cover where none existed before.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's astonishing that they can analyze walnut DNA.
Speaker 2: Thank you, I thought the same thing, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: and this research has been going on for decades, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't until the advent of gene mapping technology that
Speaker 2: we could really start to solve this kind of mystery.
Speaker 2: That's just wild, all right.
Speaker 3: Well, here's a less positive use of technology, and that
Speaker 3: is nut crime, which sounds like a joke, but it's
Speaker 3: not funny when you consider that it cost California nut
Speaker 3: farmers millions of dollars.
Speaker 2: You know, we love a weird food crime story here
Speaker 2: at Part Time Geniuses. I know we've done entire episodes
Speaker 2: on cheese crimes and wine crimes, So tell me about
Speaker 2: the nut crimes. All right.
Speaker 3: So, the California nut industry is worth billions of dollars
Speaker 3: every single year, and the uptick and crime seems to
Speaker 3: have started around two thousand and nine. There was one
Speaker 3: report I read that linked this to the two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight recession. This is when consumer demand for electronics dropped,
Speaker 3: making gadgets a less attractive item for theft and resale. Now,
Speaker 3: nuts are always in demand, they last a long time
Speaker 3: before they spoil, and unlike flat screen TV, they don't
Speaker 3: have serial numbers or barcodes, so you really can't track them. So,
Speaker 3: between twenty thirteen and twenty seventeen, over ten million dollars
Speaker 3: of California almonds and pistachios were stolen, and the problem
Speaker 3: has gotten worse as organized nut thieves have become more sophisticated.
Speaker 2: So what does a nut heist even look like?
Speaker 3: Well, that's the tricky thing. Here it looks like a
Speaker 3: normal day at a nut farm. See, there's a complex
Speaker 3: web of growers, wholesalers, distributors, and retailers, all of whom
Speaker 3: contract with third party trucking companies to move these nuts
Speaker 3: from place to place. Now, one of the main ways
Speaker 3: nut thieves get their hands on the goods is by
Speaker 3: impersonating employees of a trucking company, So they create a
Speaker 3: fake cargo company, They show up early, and they leave
Speaker 3: with the loot before the real truckers arrive. Now, another
Speaker 3: problem is that some victims are hesitant to report this
Speaker 3: kind of cargo theft. They worry about bad pr They
Speaker 3: assume that once the nuts are gone, there's no way
Speaker 3: to get them back. And these cases are difficult to
Speaker 3: pursue because they involve moving products across state lines, which
Speaker 3: can make jurisdiction hard to determine as well. So a
Speaker 3: local police department might refer you to a federal agency,
Speaker 3: which might send you to a state agency, which might
Speaker 3: refer you back to the Feds. And unfortunately, even when
Speaker 3: the FBI has jurisdiction, they often lack the resources to
Speaker 3: go after small and medium sized cases that don't have
Speaker 3: a clear link to organized crime or terrorism.
Speaker 2: Now, I badly want someone to make one of those
Speaker 2: CSI shows about nut thefts, you know, to raise awareness
Speaker 2: about the problem. Well, we have to take a quick break,
Speaker 2: but when we come back, we have more nutty facts
Speaker 2: for you, including a rare medical condition caused by a
Speaker 2: popular salad topping, and the toughest nut to crack don't
Speaker 2: go anywhere. Welcome back to part time Genius.
Speaker 3: Now, before we get back to nuts, quick reminder that
Speaker 3: if you have a question or idea for the show,
Speaker 3: you can give us a call. You call us at
Speaker 3: three oh two, four oh five five nine two five.
Speaker 3: We always love hearing from you. We may even use
Speaker 3: your voicemail in a future episode if you're okay with that.
Speaker 2: But if you prefer text based communication, you can always
Speaker 2: email us at High Geniuses at gmail dot com. That's
Speaker 2: Higeniuses at gmail dot com. Okay, Well, my next fact
Speaker 2: definitely pushes the boundary of the word nut. Let me
Speaker 2: say that in advance, and I will admit this is
Speaker 2: a seed, but it's so cool I just had to
Speaker 2: include it. I'm talking about the Coco de mare aka
Speaker 2: the ccoconut or the double coconut, and in fact, it's
Speaker 2: the largest seed in the world and one of the
Speaker 2: rarest too.
Speaker 3: You know, I love coconuts, so I've decided to allow
Speaker 3: this exception as well.
Speaker 2: Thank you will, very gracious. So for centuries, these giant
Speaker 2: cos have washed up on the shores of the Maldives.
Speaker 2: It said that a Roman emperor once paid four thousand
Speaker 2: gold florins for one, which I assume is a lot,
Speaker 2: and you know, he had it mounted on a gold stand.
Speaker 2: And so finding one of these it was a big deal.
Speaker 2: They were prized items for sale or trade, and they
Speaker 2: were used for medicinal purposes too, But that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that the average person who picked one up got to
Speaker 2: profit from it. At one point, any sea coconut that
Speaker 2: washed up on the beach was considered the property of
Speaker 2: the Sultan of the Maldives. He just claimed them.
Speaker 1: All.
Speaker 2: Wow, now you actually you've mentioned a couple times that
Speaker 2: they washed up there, So are you saying they don't
Speaker 2: grow in the mal thieves? Like they just floated there
Speaker 2: from somewhere else. Yeah, and for a long time no
Speaker 2: one knew where they came from. Legend had it that
Speaker 2: there was an underwater forest of exceptionally large palm trees,
Speaker 2: which sounds incredible, but the truth is pretty cool too.
Speaker 2: In seventeen sixty eight, a French explorer finally figured out
Speaker 2: where the cocoa de mare came from a pair of
Speaker 2: islands in the Seyshells, about three thousand miles southwest of
Speaker 2: the Maldives. So this is the only place in the
Speaker 2: world where the cocoa de mare grows. And as for
Speaker 2: how the seeds travel from there, well, it turns out
Speaker 2: that when the coconuts fall into the ocean, they sink
Speaker 2: because they're so heavy they weigh about up to fifty
Speaker 2: pounds each and they don't float until their insides have
Speaker 2: rotted away, which makes them unviable. So the seed can't
Speaker 2: spread beyond their native islands, but the rotten ones ride
Speaker 2: sea currents over to the Maldives. So this emperor paid
Speaker 2: a bunch of gold for a rotten seed. I guess, yeah,
Speaker 2: he sure did. But when you consider how rare these
Speaker 2: things are, I mean, I understand why he did it.
Speaker 2: And there's one more fun fact about this crazy coconut
Speaker 2: I have to share, because it's a double coconut. Remember,
Speaker 2: the two halves kind of look like a human butt,
Speaker 2: and the local Seychelles creole. It's not called a cocoa
Speaker 2: de mare. It's called a cocoa fess, which means yes,
Speaker 2: bum nut.
Speaker 3: Oh man, I feel like there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 3: of giggling going on on the listening of this episode.
Speaker 2: But who doesn't love a bomb nut? Right?
Speaker 3: All right, Well, let's continue with the tropical vibe for
Speaker 3: a moment. You've probably seen pistachios, walnuts, even almonds for
Speaker 3: sale in the shell, but there's one nut that's always
Speaker 3: sold shelled.
Speaker 2: And that is the macadamia nut. Yeah. I mean, I
Speaker 2: never thought about it, but you're right, I have never
Speaker 2: seen macadamia nuts, you know, in the shell.
Speaker 3: And there's a good reason for that. So macadamias are
Speaker 3: the world's toughest shelled nut. They require three hundred pounds
Speaker 3: of pressure per square inch just to crack. It actually
Speaker 3: makes you wonder, like back to the first person ever
Speaker 3: getting a taste to one of these, Like how they
Speaker 3: actually got to it. But you know, macadamias are native
Speaker 3: to Australia, but back in the late eighteen hundreds they
Speaker 3: were imported over to Hawaii, which is the place most
Speaker 3: Americans associate them with. Hawaiians call them mac nuts, and
Speaker 3: it's a huge industry there, a real source of local pride.
Speaker 3: But harvesting them requires a ton of work, as we
Speaker 3: mentioned before. So first the mature nuts fall to the
Speaker 3: ground and they're harvested. Then the husk need to be
Speaker 3: removed from there, and the nuts get dried out so
Speaker 3: that the meat stays fresher longer, and the shells get
Speaker 3: brittle and it makes them easier to crack open. So
Speaker 3: after that the processors have to use this specialized machinery,
Speaker 3: often imported from the Southern Hemisphere, just to open these nuts. Now,
Speaker 3: it may have gone down a little bit of a
Speaker 3: rabbit hole of the macadamia nut cracking equipment, and I
Speaker 3: have to say my favorite is the New Zealand company
Speaker 3: called Crackadamia. Of course, it's just such a great name.
Speaker 3: I loved it. They invented a macadamia cracking machine that
Speaker 3: uses hardened sharp steel knives attached to these heavy duty flywheels.
Speaker 3: Now there are other commercial macnut crackers out there, but
Speaker 3: you can't beat the name Crackadamia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you really can't. I'm sure they're good at nut cracking,
Speaker 2: but they are really good at branding. That's their main thing. Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 2: Well I'm glad you brought up nutcrackers though, because that's
Speaker 2: what my next fact is all about. And I'm not
Speaker 2: talking commercial machinery. I mean those gadgets that your grandparents
Speaker 2: had lying around, or the decorative soldier guys you see
Speaker 2: at Christmas. People have used various tools to crack nuts
Speaker 2: for thousands of years. Apparently Leonardo da Vinci even brainstorm
Speaker 2: the best way to open nuts, and his solution was
Speaker 2: a huge horsepowered press. Wow, that would take up a
Speaker 2: lot of space in a kitchen yeah, yeah, right, or
Speaker 2: a barn. And you know, over the centuries, nutcrackers took
Speaker 2: different shapes, from simple utilitarian tools to colorful fancy dolls.
Speaker 2: The decorative nutcracker really took off in the nineteenth century
Speaker 2: over in Europe, where toymakers began making elaborate versions in
Speaker 2: their workshops. German author Eta Hoffman published his fairy tale
Speaker 2: The Nutcracker and the Mouse in eighteen sixteen, and in
Speaker 2: eighteen nineteen Chaikowsky turned it into the famous ballet. So
Speaker 2: you know, nutcrackers have a long history both as art
Speaker 2: and as a culinary tool. But there are only two
Speaker 2: museums in the world dedicated to nutcrackers. That's too few right,
Speaker 2: One in Germany and one in Levenworth, Washington. And the
Speaker 2: Levenworth Nutcracker Museum is the world's largest nutcracker museum, with
Speaker 2: over nine thousand handmade nutcrackers. It's run by Arlene Wagner,
Speaker 2: who recently turned one hundred and one years old. Happy birthday, Arlene.
Speaker 2: And She became interested in nutcrackers in nineteen seventy six
Speaker 2: when she was involved in a community production of the Nutcracker.
Speaker 2: Since then, she's traveled the world collecting them. One of
Speaker 2: the newest additions to her collection is a nutcracker modeled
Speaker 2: after her. It was made by some fans in Germany.
Speaker 2: It holds a nutcracker in each hand, a tiny little one,
Speaker 2: and it's wearing her signature string of pearls. So I've
Speaker 2: actually never even heard of Levenworth, Washington, but I kind
Speaker 2: of want to go there now, I mean road trip.
Speaker 2: What do you say, fly? It's pretty far gay Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: that makes sense, all right.
Speaker 3: Well, since we're talking about Christmas, I have to mention
Speaker 3: roasted chestnuts. Of course, people ate roasted chestnuts before the
Speaker 3: Christmas Song was written in nineteen forty five. But then
Speaker 3: there's the question how did they become so associated with
Speaker 3: the holiday that Robert Wells and Meltormet included them in
Speaker 3: their lyrics. Well, the first part of the answer has
Speaker 3: to do with botany. Chestnut trees are resilient to cold,
Speaker 3: and the nuts are ready to harvest in late fall.
Speaker 3: But also, chestnuts were historically considered a substance food, and
Speaker 3: they're connected to a fourth century Catholic saint named Saint Martin.
Speaker 2: Now Martin was a.
Speaker 3: Lowly soldier and then a cold winter day he ripped
Speaker 3: his coat in half to share with a beggar. His
Speaker 3: feast day, November eleventh, became associated with acts of charity,
Speaker 3: including giving away nutritious food like chestnuts. To this day,
Speaker 3: many parts of Europe celebrate Saint Martin's Day with roasted chestnuts.
Speaker 3: The tradition came to the US, where American chestnut trees
Speaker 3: used to grow in abundance along the East Coast. Street
Speaker 3: vendors sold roasted chestnuts in East Coast cities because they
Speaker 3: were cheap and plentiful, and even tastier than their European counterparts,
Speaker 3: which are more starchy than they are sweet.
Speaker 2: You know, just like with red pistachios, I feel like
Speaker 2: you don't see roasted chestnuts much anymore. No, that's true,
Speaker 2: and our good pal Doug mac actually looked into that
Speaker 2: for his Snackstacked newsletter. So the conventional wisdom is that
Speaker 2: American taste for roasted chestnuts faded after a twentieth century
Speaker 2: chestnut blight wiped out most of our native chestnut trees,
Speaker 2: leaving us with these less tasty European imports. But Doug
Speaker 2: also discovered that that's not the whole story. So roasted
Speaker 2: chestnut vendors were still in the streets of New York
Speaker 2: as late as the nineteen sixties, apparently doing just fine.
Speaker 2: So I also dug into this and found newspaper articles
Speaker 2: from the seventies and eighties that raved about fancy French
Speaker 2: desserts like mont Blanc that were made with these imported chestnuts.
Speaker 2: So it's not entirely clear why roasted chestnuts disappeared, but
Speaker 2: one thing for certain. Next Christmas, you can always buy
Speaker 2: a bag and roast them in your oven. Martha Stewart
Speaker 2: says to set the tempt to three point fifty in
Speaker 2: order to do so. Okay, good to know all right,
Speaker 2: it is time for our final fact of the day,
Speaker 2: and it's about a mysterious condition known as pine mouth.
Speaker 2: This was first reported in two thousand and one by
Speaker 2: European researchers who described eight cases of a strange taste
Speaker 2: disturbance after eating pine nuts. Now, some of the cases
Speaker 2: were so severe they were reported to local poison control centers.
Speaker 2: The researchers hypothesized that the pine nuts had oxidized, and
Speaker 2: they actually did a test with a volunteer who ate
Speaker 2: oxidized pine nuts and then reported having a bad taste
Speaker 2: in their mouth.
Speaker 3: I mean, oxidized nuts would taste bad, right, Like, this
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like news.
Speaker 2: Yeah, except it's not just about the food tasting bad
Speaker 2: as you're eating it. It's that you end up with
Speaker 2: a bad taste in your mouth for several days afterward,
Speaker 2: which sounds it's truly unpleasant. And you know, after these
Speaker 2: two thousand and one reports, the condition went mostly unnoticed
Speaker 2: until twenty ten, when a US physician named Mark David
Speaker 2: Munk published a paper reporting on his own experience with
Speaker 2: taste disturbance after eating pine nuts. Doctor Monk wrote that
Speaker 2: his symptoms began twenty four hours after eating ten to
Speaker 2: fifteen roasted pine nuts as part of a meal. He
Speaker 2: felt fine physically, but he had a lingering, bitter, metallic
Speaker 2: taste in his mouth, so eating sweet food made it worse.
Speaker 2: He tried rinsing with salt water and mouthwash, neither of
Speaker 2: which did anything, and eventually the symptoms just went away.
Speaker 2: And in fact, our own producer Mary had a very
Speaker 2: similar experience in the fall of two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: She didn't write a paper about it, but she did
Speaker 2: tell me that it lasted for a week, during which
Speaker 2: time the only food she could tolerate were things that
Speaker 2: were really sour, like grapefruit and vegetables with like vinegary dressing.
Speaker 2: She reported it to the main Department of Health, who
Speaker 2: and I quote told me they were very sorry to
Speaker 2: hear it, but they had no idea what I was
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 3: Believe it or not, I have not experienced it, but
Speaker 3: both my wife and my younger kid experienced this probably
Speaker 3: it was probably about a decade ago, and yeah, they
Speaker 3: reported everything they were tasting was disgusting and in fact
Speaker 3: it ruined the taste of a couple different things that they.
Speaker 2: Would regularly eat or drink.
Speaker 3: I think milk, for example, was something our kids used
Speaker 3: to drink a lot of and after having pine mouth,
Speaker 3: no go anymore.
Speaker 2: It just made everything taste really bad to this day,
Speaker 2: are they off milk now?
Speaker 3: They don't drink a ton of milk maybe in cereal
Speaker 3: or things like that, but yeah, the way it happened
Speaker 3: was they then went on social media and you know,
Speaker 3: posted sort of along the lines of Maria and we're saying,
Speaker 3: you know, we keep everything we eat taste disgusting right now,
Speaker 3: there is something going on with our taste buds.
Speaker 2: What is this? Yeah?
Speaker 3: And then a couple people chimed in and we're saying,
Speaker 3: you know, have you eaten pine nuts recently? That sounds
Speaker 3: like pine mouth. So fortunately crazy the collective knew what
Speaker 3: it might have been thanks a lot pine nuts.
Speaker 2: So do we know what causes this? Like, is this
Speaker 2: still happening? We still don't know exactly what causes it
Speaker 2: or why it only happens to some people. It's possible
Speaker 2: that rancid oil in the pine nuts could be a factor,
Speaker 2: but a more intriguing theory emerged from a Swiss lab
Speaker 2: where researchers discovered that some commercial bags of pine nuts
Speaker 2: included two varieties that aren't usually eaten, the Chinese white
Speaker 2: pine and the Chinese red pine. Apparently, there are over
Speaker 2: one hundred different species of pine nuts, only twenty nine
Speaker 2: of which are classified as edible. Each species of pine
Speaker 2: nut contains a slightly different mix of fatty acids, which
Speaker 2: could lead to differences in taste or symptoms of pinemouth.
Speaker 3: I assume there's no way to tell by just looking
Speaker 3: what kind of pine nut you have.
Speaker 2: Oh no, that'd be way too easy. No, pine mouth
Speaker 2: doesn't appear to be spreading or getting worse. But if
Speaker 2: you're really concerned, just steer clear of pine nuts and
Speaker 2: general or bring your meal to a Swiss lab for testing,
Speaker 2: you know, before you dig in.
Speaker 3: That's pretty great advice, Gabe, all right, I think for
Speaker 3: that and the incredible story about the bumb nuts, you
Speaker 3: deserve today's trophy.
Speaker 2: Congratulations. Hey, I'll take it. Thanks Will Well. That does
Speaker 2: it for today.
Speaker 3: Be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite
Speaker 3: podcast app. And if you enjoyed this episode, share it
Speaker 3: with a friend. We'll be back next week. But in
Speaker 3: the meantime, From Mango, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself, thank
Speaker 3: you so.
Speaker 2: Much for listening.
Speaker 1: Part time genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: It is hosted by my good pal will Pearson, who
Speaker 1: I've known for almost three decades now.
Speaker 2: That is insane to me.
Speaker 1: I'm the Utaco host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is
Speaker 1: Mary Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: fix that in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier, who
Speaker 1: I've also known for like a decade at this point,
Speaker 1: maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is
Speaker 1: always dressed up, always cheering us on, and always ready
Speaker 1: to hit record and then mix the show after he
Speaker 1: does a great job. I also want to shout out
Speaker 1: the executive producers from iHeart my good pals Katrina and
Speaker 1: Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media support from
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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. That's it from us here
Speaker 1: at Part Time Genius. Thank you so much for listening.