[HN Gopher] Why pine nuts are expensive [video]
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Why pine nuts are expensive [video]
        
       Author : DocFeind
       Score  : 116 points
       Date   : 2021-11-01 14:07 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
        
       | JoeAltmaier wrote:
       | Expensive? When my wife wants some, she goes out in grandma's
       | back yard (New Mexico) and shakes some pinecones. All it costs
       | is, getting your hands a bit sappy.
        
         | Zancarius wrote:
         | Sadly, we've lost most of our pinyons in this part of NM due to
         | drought! There are quite a few saplings coming back, however.
         | 
         | I feel like "a bit sappy" is something of an understatement--
         | they're REALLY sappy trees! But, hey, nothing a little
         | isopropyl can't fix!
        
         | CameronNemo wrote:
         | You also have to shell them! Any tips on how to do that?
        
           | JoeAltmaier wrote:
           | I'll ask
        
       | georgewsinger wrote:
       | How have drones not solved this problem yet?
        
         | spoonjim wrote:
         | Monkeys would be massively cheaper than drones.
        
         | Koffiepoeder wrote:
         | Flying with drones through a tree can be incredibly difficult.
         | Secondly, someone steering a drone will probably not have the
         | same yields as someone climbing. In consequence, this would
         | require the whole drone process to be fully automated. A fully
         | autonomous drone flying through trees recognizing the correct
         | cones and managing to harvest them is even harder. Add the
         | short battery life and I fear the economics simply don't work
         | out.
        
       | pietrovismara wrote:
       | I remember as a child I would often go with my parents to gather
       | pine seeds as we have many pines where I grew up. There were
       | really a lot to be found in the right periods, literally on the
       | streets.
       | 
       | Nowadays for some reason they're almost impossible to find, not
       | sure if this happens because everyone realized how valuable they
       | are and is rushing to gather them.
        
       | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
       | Here's the summary of the article, which is also all the text
       | content of the "article", straight from the page to save you a
       | click:                   * Shelled pine nuts can cost $117 per
       | kilogram.         * The majority of pine nuts we buy come from
       | natural forests.         * Harvesting pine nuts is extremely
       | dangerous, and labor is expensive.
        
         | t0mbstone wrote:
         | Thank you!
        
         | LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
         | That's just the caption for the video which plays for about 7
         | minutes and is actually watchable if you're interested in the
         | steps they need from people climbing into trees, collecting
         | cones up there, and all the steps between that, and arriving
         | where you can buy them packaged.
        
       | giantg2 wrote:
       | Looks like a good application for a drone with shears...
        
       | jonah-archive wrote:
       | You can harvest your own (Pinus monophylla) pine nuts in Great
       | Basin National Park:
       | https://www.nps.gov/grba/planyourvisit/pinenutgathering.htm -- I
       | highly recommend it, it's a great park and you'll really get a
       | sense for the labor involved (and some pine nuts). If you're in
       | the Bay Area the drive out across Route 50 (the Loneliest Road In
       | America) is beautiful as well.
        
       | zachruss92 wrote:
       | I've been really enjoying this kind of content that Business
       | Insider has been putting out. I've been watching their content on
       | YouTube about why things are so expensive and about businesses
       | that have been around for hundreds of years ("Still Standing").
       | Highly recommend y'all check out their content.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/user/businessinsider/videos
        
       | bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
       | Everyone should try harvesting a pine nut from a local pine. They
       | all have them they just might not be of a size worth the effort.
       | It is a good learning experience though!
       | 
       | In summer, pick up fallen green pine cones. Wait til they start
       | opening up. Start at the bottom and relish every one you manage
       | to free.
        
         | magneticnorth wrote:
         | Do you know if other conifers have edible & tasty seeds in the
         | cones, or is it only pines?
        
           | Hayarotle wrote:
           | The seeds(known as pinhao) from Araucaria angustifolia are
           | edible and tasty too, they're larger than pinoli and a common
           | winter delicacy in the southern states of Brazil
           | 
           | I wonder if there are others
        
       | munificent wrote:
       | I have a side dish recipe I love for cooking pearl couscous that
       | uses pine nuts toasted in butter. The last time I made it, I
       | bought too more pine nuts than I needed for the recipe. I just
       | went and fried them all up in butter. Then I took the leftovers,
       | added some salt, and ate them like a snack.
       | 
       | My God, I have never had a more decadent, hedonistic snack in my
       | life. They are like eating angel's tears. If they weren't so
       | expensive, I'd eat my weight in them.
        
       | Maxburn wrote:
       | Man this site is toxic, full page cover "lets talk about your
       | adblocker", meanwhile a video with sound is playing in the
       | background and you can't do anything about it. Seriously, what do
       | they expect people to do? I know I hit the close tab in record
       | time.
        
         | LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
         | Didn't happen whith hosts-based AB. Also no autoplay. Had to
         | explicitely click on the play button in the middle of the still
         | frame.
         | 
         | Besides that it looked like about 3 pages of empty white space,
         | which I scrolled through to find the missing article.
        
         | LeoPanthera wrote:
         | I've been having a very good experience using Safari with "Stop
         | auto-play" turned on, and the AdGuard extension installed.
         | 
         | You can enable search ads, self-promotion, and other non-
         | obtrusive advertising in the "Other" category, but it continues
         | to successfully block the nasty ads, including the anti-
         | adblocker popups.
         | 
         | Recommended.
        
         | LordAtlas wrote:
         | You'll find it easier to just watch the video on YouTube:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k88Cu5SoABg
        
           | dang wrote:
           | Changed above from https://www.businessinsider.com/why-pine-
           | nuts-are-so-expensi.... Thanks!
        
         | junon wrote:
         | Complaining about website layouts and design is against HN
         | guidelines.
        
           | CamperBob2 wrote:
           | Why? Because the people responsible for the abusive website
           | might see the complaints and be offended?
        
             | Maxburn wrote:
             | Personally I'd prefer a warning about sites that pull the
             | things like what this one does. I see that people are
             | already warning about PDF files, some other similar warning
             | about autoplay that can't be easily stopped would be nice
             | for office environments.
             | 
             | I didn't know it was against guidelines. Often I'll come to
             | the comments to see things like links to web archive to get
             | a better or working link to contents. Comments are helpful,
             | don't know why such a thing would be against guidelines.
             | 
             | Edit; a number of other comments are listed here about
             | blockers etc etc. Maybe it would make more sense to not
             | post sites that pull stuff like this at all?
        
             | krazerlasers wrote:
             | >Please don't complain about website formatting...
             | 
             | >They're too common to be interesting.
             | 
             | >Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly
             | feedback might be helpful.
        
           | m0llusk wrote:
           | This is an important issue that goes beyond layout and
           | design. When active elements of a web site generate extreme
           | distractions or lock up the browser or even the entire
           | computer then not only is that site largely unusable with the
           | content being unreadable but it also impacts any other use or
           | application of the computer. This is a serious problem which
           | has been growing worse over time with the bulking up of web
           | content and proliferation of trackers and aggressive
           | promotions.
           | 
           | It makes sense that many resort to ad and script blockers of
           | various sorts, but it is also pretty clear that this has led
           | to escalation and competition. Instead of being confident
           | that powerful machines and blockers can solve this we need to
           | find some way of taming the problem that ordinary people with
           | ordinary browsers and configurations and machines can use to
           | navigate the web and access content while retaining basic
           | control of their attention, their browser, and their machines
           | that they own.
        
         | horsawlarway wrote:
         | Ublock Origin kills the popover and the auto-play video, but
         | the site also appears to be blank outside of the first
         | paragraph of the article.
         | 
         | I also closed the tab immediately.
        
           | LeoPanthera wrote:
           | There is only one paragraph. The page is a just a holder for
           | the video.
        
           | OneLeggedCat wrote:
           | Firefox Tracking Protection blocked most everything on the
           | page all by itself, even the content.
        
           | hinkley wrote:
           | I'm just using Firefox, no add-ons, no pihole, and I only get
           | one paragraph.
        
       | vl wrote:
       | They are not even remotely as expensive in Russia, most common
       | sold variety is shelled, of course. Also, nobody climbs trees to
       | collect them, they use huge mallet to strike tree trunk wearing
       | protective head gear and then collect pine cones from the ground.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | aliswe wrote:
       | Ah, the chalghoza as it is called in Pakistan (mostly imported
       | from Afghanistan).
       | 
       | The word comes from the persian words chehel = 40 (iirc) and
       | ghoza = seed pod.
        
       | kleton wrote:
       | China just started importing a bunch of pine nuts from
       | Afghanistan. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/china-
       | gets-1st-shipmen...
        
       | pengaru wrote:
       | Somewhat off-topic, but I'd really like to know the real reason I
       | can't buy Turpentine in CA.
       | 
       | The petrochemicals they allow are more toxic than a pine tree
       | distillate you can probably drink.
       | 
       | It's created a situation where there's basically no food-safe
       | thinners sold on the shelves of my local CA hardware stores.
       | Never in my life would I have imagined the turpentine I handled
       | in childhood would one day be difficult to access contraband...
       | 
       | I ended up buying a can out of state to thin some pure tung oil
       | for finishing a food surface. Boggles the mind.
        
       | ironmagma wrote:
       | Can the safety regimen really not be improved here? It seems like
       | just having a harness would help.
        
       | Mountain_Skies wrote:
       | I had to develop a taste for walnut pesto. Pine nuts make better
       | pesto but not so much better that they're worth the extra cost.
        
         | schnevets wrote:
         | It isn't a one-to-one substitute, but Sunflower Pesto can also
         | be delicious on some dishes.
        
         | Xcelerate wrote:
         | I once had some pistachio pesto on a pizza. I wasn't sure what
         | to expect, but it ended up being delicious.
        
         | andy_ppp wrote:
         | Cashews, brazil nuts or even almonds are all fine so long as
         | you quickly toast them first they taste awesome.
        
           | darkwater wrote:
           | No they are not, I belong to the Pesto Striking force and you
           | can definitely tell the difference. :)
           | 
           | On the other hand there are smaller, cheaper pine nuts coming
           | from China available here in Europe that are pretty OK for
           | the job. But I'm bit worried by how they are collected, labor
           | wise.
        
             | AdamN wrote:
             | I generally don't buy any food from China - simply don't
             | trust the health regulations. Seaweed I get from Japan or
             | US, pine nuts - anywhere but China. Of course I'm sure I'm
             | getting quite a bit from China when I'm in restaurants but
             | imho it's not a binary thing - just try to reduce risk.
        
             | andy_ppp wrote:
             | I didn't say they don't taste different, just as good. One
             | of the best (and Italian) chefs in the world uses bread not
             | nuts so I think the swapping for different nuts isn't the
             | end of the world. Massimo Bottura:
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adyRuV2eJlM
        
           | tomcam wrote:
           | You two have opened up my eyes. These actually sound better
           | than pine nuts to me
        
         | huhtenberg wrote:
         | Pistachio pesto is also a very good option.
        
         | analog31 wrote:
         | Came here to make same comment. My family grows basil every
         | summer and our pesto consumption would bankrupt us if we used
         | pine nuts.
        
       | bicx wrote:
       | Sounds like a job for trained squirrels.
        
         | klyrs wrote:
         | Sounds tricky. I'm imagining an orchard with a false floor:
         | when the squirrels bury the nuts, they fall through to a
         | conveyor belt.
        
           | jjgreen wrote:
           | Now you can add "squirrel trolling" to your resume, sweet.
        
         | yissp wrote:
         | Yeah, Oompa Loompas wouldn't be able to get the whole nut out
         | without breaking it.
        
       | disqard wrote:
       | Did anyone else find that website's ads and non-content placement
       | to be utter garbage?
        
       | sam0x17 wrote:
       | Side note: I've had a recipe that calls for pine nuts for a
       | while, and have had to use walnuts because no grocery store
       | within 30 miles carries them.
        
       | joe_the_user wrote:
       | Here in the mountain areas of California, we actually have quite
       | a few wild and domesticated-gone-wild nut and fruit trees around.
       | 
       | There's the gray, one of the few pines who's nuts are edible,
       | there's black walnut and ordinary walnut and the Chestnut as well
       | as wild/feral plums, apples and pears. I have found just one
       | unopened, fallen gray-pine cone so far and extracting the nuts is
       | labor intensive indeed (to get the nuts, put pine cones in a
       | burlap bag and hit is against a wall many time but then you have
       | a bunch of nuts that require considerable cracking ).
       | 
       | Black walnut meat is very tasty (more like pine nuts than
       | standard walnuts imo). And the tree spew out a whole lot of nuts.
       | The only problem? The meat seems to be exactly as hard as the
       | shells and the shells don't seem to every naturally open. Perhaps
       | if you smash the things and used some centrifuge you could usable
       | meat in quantity. Chestnuts are easy though, I collect enough for
       | a modest snack each time I go through town lately.
       | 
       | Wild food is cool but there's a reason human domesticate and
       | breed plants.
        
         | Broken_Hippo wrote:
         | My grandmother had black walnut trees.
         | 
         | She used to collect the green walnuts and put them on trays to
         | dry out: The "trays" were wood frames with small chicken wire
         | bottoms (sturdy plus air flow). They seemed large, but I was a
         | child. And then, she'd wait until they dry out.
         | 
         | When the fruit dries out, it is much easier to remove. It gets
         | brittle and comes off. It will, however, stain everything dark.
         | Wear gloves (they used leather), wear old clothes, and it might
         | help to be outside. She generally got help with this.
         | 
         | Underneath, there was just the regular walnut shell, and it can
         | be opened with nutcracker tools.
         | 
         | Sidenote: As a child, I hated these walnuts because I thought
         | they were yucky. It actually made me swear off walnuts
         | completely for some years because I didn't realize they were a
         | different variety.
        
         | gremloni wrote:
         | This information on black walnut is harmful. The fruits contain
         | a toxic substance called jugalone which cannot be consumed.
         | Every notice a black walnut tree and notice how there are no
         | other plants in a circle around the trunk? That's because of
         | the jugalone.
         | 
         | Have you consumed any without any side effects because that's
         | interesting considering the number of black walnut trees I have
         | on my property.
         | 
         | EDIT: I'm finding conflicting information online so I'm not
         | sure. Apparently jugalone is poisonous to humans but I'm also
         | seeing lots of black walnut recipes.
        
           | xenadu02 wrote:
           | Juglone is toxic to most plant species but AFAIK it is
           | harmless to mammals.
        
             | gremloni wrote:
             | Horses get sick a lot from eating black walnuts.
        
               | LeifCarrotson wrote:
               | The husk on the outside of the walnut contains most of
               | the jugalone. That's the green-to-black part on the
               | outside of the fruit. If you've bought whole walnuts
               | (dry, brown, wrinkly), but never seen them in the wild,
               | you've never seen this part.
               | 
               | The horses and pigs get sick because they only eat the
               | husk, they can't crack the shell to get at the nutritious
               | part.
               | 
               | The meat inside of the shell is safe.
               | 
               | Reference:
               | 
               | https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/extensions-greatest-
               | hit...
        
           | joe_the_user wrote:
           | Do you have any references for this?
           | 
           | Black Walnut produce more jugalone than other walnuts but
           | "Most members of the Walnut family (Juglandaceae) produce a
           | chemical called "juglone" (5 hydroxy-alphanapthoquinone)
           | which occurs naturally in all parts of these plants." [1]
           | 
           | I have no reference to juglone as being toxic humans despite
           | many references to its toxicity to other plants.
           | 
           | I personally haven't consumed much 'cause they're a hassle to
           | prepare but other comment to my post was from a person who
           | with no apparent effects. And I've eaten lots of commercial
           | walnuts, which supposedly also contain jugalone
           | 
           | And, there's toxicity to horses from juglone and to dog
           | something else from but nothing related to humans mentioned
           | here or anywhere I can find.
           | 
           | http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/info_walnut_.
           | ..
        
       | prpl wrote:
       | I grew up in New Mexico eating (unshelled) and occasionally
       | collecting pinon seeds (pine nuts) though I didn't realize they
       | were all the same until much later because the taste was so
       | different. You can still buy the unshelled version without paying
       | too much, but it is a lot of work to break the shells.
        
         | AStrangeMorrow wrote:
         | Similar situation here. When I was younger, there was plenty of
         | these specific pine trees close to a local cinema (back in
         | France). We wouldn't go often, but before / after the movie we
         | would pick the shelled nuts off the ground and crack them open.
         | I got surprised to see how expensive these are the first time I
         | found them in a shop given that, as kids, we would just pick
         | these off the ground.
        
           | willyt wrote:
           | Just a little aside. Your comment confused me a bit because
           | 'shelled' in this context means the shells have already been
           | removed from the nuts not that they are things in thier
           | shells. As in 'I'm shelling these nuts, but I've shelled
           | those ones already'. It can also be used in the other sense,
           | but usually only when describing the properties of the shell
           | e.g 'a hard-shelled crab'. Apologies in advance if you didn't
           | want the pedantic nut police!
        
         | CameronNemo wrote:
         | Have any good tips for cracking? I have some local pine trees
         | with large, tasty nuts. But it is such a hassle to separate the
         | nut's meat from the shell.
         | 
         | Right now I am just using a hammer and the cement pavement to
         | break the thick shells individually without smooshing the meat.
         | I have _heard_ of a technique where you do not care about
         | smooshing the meat, you just crush the whole nut, shell and
         | all, and place all the nuts in liquid. The shells supposedly
         | float while the meat sinks. I have never tried that though.
         | 
         | I am open to any suggestions to make my foraging more
         | efficient.
        
           | iudqnolq wrote:
           | My grandfather would crack walnuts in a large vise. It's not
           | the right tool but it gives you much finer control and
           | reproducibility than a hammer.
        
           | arminiusreturns wrote:
           | I learned from the local Nde how to gather, (traditionally a
           | female activity while the males hunted) and what they do is
           | do a light cracking of many nuts at once on a mill stone
           | usually after toasting, more in a long pull across the
           | surface than a smash, then toss the pile around letting the
           | wind or manual blowing to get rid of the husks. Of course in
           | hurry just use your teeth.
        
           | mytailorisrich wrote:
           | My experience is you need to find the right amount of force
           | in order to crack the shell without smashing it.
           | 
           | As a child I found that the right tool helped: too big a rock
           | and everything is smashed, too small and it's not cracked at
           | all, but you can find the right one that nicely crack the
           | shell by taping it on the nut.
        
             | prpl wrote:
             | yes - we had a specific hammer that worked pretty reliably
             | where the potential energy from a light swing was close to
             | perfect. You could use the hammer end of a splitting wedge
             | too, but you had to be a bit lighter on the touch. Of
             | course, the smaller nuts were always harder to crack.
        
           | prpl wrote:
           | That sort of depends - it is fairly traditional to roast in-
           | shell (which makes the shell more brittle) and use
           | rocks/hammer/teeth.
           | 
           | This guy has a de-sheller/crusher, if you want to see:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Si67R1BjY
           | 
           | I would probably try to sort/bin by size (shake through
           | progressively larger holes/screens, might need to fabricate
           | something), then run it through the crusher, then again
           | screen
           | 
           | To expand a bit more, probably dual steel plates with fixed
           | spacers (based on bin size) in a hydraulic press would be
           | best. Roasting/dehydrating/waiting makes the shells brittle
           | and would make that process easier probably.
        
         | heliophobicdude wrote:
         | Same here! My family and I would pick some from the forest
         | floors where we could. Very tricky to find.
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | Tolo News, out of Kabul, reports that there's a glut of pine nuts
       | in Afghanistan, but no way of getting them out of the country.[1]
       | Opportunity there for someone.
       | 
       | [1] https://tolonews.com/index.php/business-175138
        
         | trhway wrote:
         | they should just mix-in some poppy into it and it will
         | magically find its way out of the country :) Seriously though i
         | wonder whether any interaction with Taliban - they are
         | government there, so say paying any custom fee, etc. would thus
         | become a material interaction with an officially designated
         | terrorist group - would make one a criminal in the most of the
         | world.
         | 
         | >* Harvesting pine nuts is extremely dangerous, and labor is
         | expensive.
         | 
         | 30+ years ago working summer construction jobs in Siberia we'd
         | go into the forest to gather the nuts - i mean you'd climb up
         | the pine tree to the very very top where most of the pines
         | cones are, and the top of the pine is swaying in the wind, and
         | there is around you like a beautiful sea of the pine tops
         | moving like a kind of sea waves.
         | 
         | Locals though would just get a chainsaw and fall the pine trees
         | and gather the pine cones that way.
        
         | Synaesthesia wrote:
         | Well sure the US should relax it's sanctions and at least allow
         | them to sell their goods
        
       | bArray wrote:
       | The Pinenut 01S on the other hand is quite well priced [1] at
       | just $2 each [2]!
       | 
       | [1] https://www.pine64.org/pinenut/
       | 
       | [2] https://pine64.com/product/pinenut-model01s-wifi-
       | ble5-module...
        
         | deepsun wrote:
         | This not nuts-to-nuts comparison. How much would 1kg of them
         | cost?
        
           | Semaphor wrote:
           | 1 kg would be 500 (at a stated weight of 0.002 kg), so $995
        
         | rizky05 wrote:
         | But will it taste the same?
        
       | atmikev wrote:
       | Well each male tree only has two of them and you have to wait
       | until puberty for them to be ripe. So ya, they're gonna be
       | expensive.
        
       | jillesvangurp wrote:
       | I buy a bag of 50grams for about 2-3 euros in my local
       | supermarket. 40-60 Euros/kg. Lets call it about 70$/kg. Of course
       | a whole kilo would be quite a lot. 50grams is a good amount if
       | you are making pesto, which I do a lot because I grow lots of
       | Basil on my balcony
        
       | derbOac wrote:
       | Once I developed pine mouth
       | (https://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/about-
       | us/science/food-r...). It was was one of the weirdest experiences
       | I've ever had; I thought I had stumbled on some strange genetic
       | metabolic disorder that was starting to manifest before I
       | eventually figured out what it was. Basically, everything with
       | carbohydrates started tasting super metallic and bitter, a little
       | like soap or something, and it lasted for days.
       | 
       | At first I thought it was all pine nuts. Eventually, after being
       | in a study, and with more attention and study of it, people
       | figured out it's linked to certain reactions some people have to
       | certain species of pine trees in Asia.
       | 
       | So then I started becoming picky about where the pine nuts come
       | from, and discovered the US was a major producer of pine nuts up
       | through WWII. I started buying pine nuts from local producers,
       | from which I learned a fair amount about them, that there's
       | different varieties of different size and oil content, with
       | different taste profiles, oil content, and shelf-life.
       | 
       | I love pine nuts and am happy in theory to buy them from
       | whereever, but it did open my eyes a bit to possibilities that
       | aren't really being realized. It seems like the US market is
       | drying up due to lack of demand and/or competition, but it would
       | be interesting to see local producers thrive, with an emphasize
       | on varietal quality, sort of like apples etc.
        
         | schwartzworld wrote:
         | I got called out by the chef at the restaurant I was working
         | at.
         | 
         | "It's so weird, my mouth just tastes metallic all the time no
         | matter what I eat."
         | 
         | "Been stealing pine nuts from the line?"
         | 
         | "Yup."
        
           | Wistar wrote:
           | Pine mouth and Chinese/Asia-sourced vs.
           | Italian/Mediterranean-sourced pine nuts.
           | 
           | https://www.britbuyer.co.uk/chinese-vs-italian-pine-nuts/
           | 
           | Also Australia's NSW Food Authority's post about pine mouth:
           | 
           | https://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/about-
           | us/science/food-r...
        
           | neither_color wrote:
           | This seems like a good way to reinforce a keto diet. If these
           | pine nuts don't have any other side effect besides makings
           | carbs taste bad this looks like a new health supplement idea!
        
         | lizknope wrote:
         | I had the same thing happen about 10 years ago after buying a
         | bag of pine nuts and eating them all in 3 hours. The strange
         | metallic taste from everything had me worried until I read
         | about it on the internet. It lasted about 3 days and went away.
         | I still eat pine nuts in pesto and probably some other sauces
         | but I never eat a lot by eating them directly from a bag.
        
         | tkahnoski wrote:
         | Ditto. Mine was most noticeable with the taste coffee. I
         | probably cleaned/rinsed the coffee machine three or four times
         | in an effort to improve what was otherwise something I couldn't
         | control.
         | 
         | After about a week of playing Dr. Google finally discovered
         | pine mouth and realizing the home made pesto from last week had
         | pine nuts in it.
        
           | kevinmchugh wrote:
           | Coffee frequently reveals anosmia/parosmia/the end of either.
           | Doesn't surprise me that it would have a similar interaction
           | with pinemouth. It's a strong flavor, early in the day, every
           | day. Since I learned anosmia is common with covid I've paid
           | extra attention to how my morning caffeine tastes.
        
             | dml2135 wrote:
             | Oh this is interesting -- since having Covid in January,
             | coffee is one of the things that still smells the most off
             | to me.
        
             | erie wrote:
             | Some people could be craving coffee because of iron
             | deficiency yet coffee contains natural compounds called
             | tannins that can prevent your body from absorbing iron.
        
         | samstave wrote:
         | >> Once I developed pine mouth
         | 
         | This is HN. I though you developed an app called "pine mouth"
        
           | squarefoot wrote:
           | And the Pinenut is also a product.
           | 
           | https://www.pine64.org/pinenut/
        
         | reeddavid wrote:
         | When I found pine nuts for only $16/lb at Trader Joe's, I
         | thought I'd hit the jackpot. I made pesto, and even snacked on
         | the pine nuts while I cooked.
         | 
         | Then I had a terrible, 2-week long experience with 'pine
         | mouth'.
         | 
         | Everything tasted awful: coffee, muffins, cereal, meat,
         | vegetables - even water tasted bitter. And during the first few
         | days, before I realized what was happening, I threw away tons
         | of perfectly safe food that I thought had spoiled.
         | 
         | I never found out how common pine mouth was, but I was really
         | upset that the risk wasn't better communicated.
        
         | climb_stealth wrote:
         | Oh wow, I think I ran into this once as well. It was such a
         | strange experience. In my case my Shinramyun instant noodles
         | started tasting metallic and soapy for a few days. I thought
         | there was soap on the cutlery or something and couldn't work it
         | out.
         | 
         | I'm so glad you mentioned this as it explains a lot.
        
         | germinalphrase wrote:
         | Same journey here. I thought I was developing a neurological
         | [edit: problem] or something.
         | 
         | It was unpleasant enough that I often substitute walnuts.
        
           | JasonFruit wrote:
           | I refuse to see "neurological" made into a noun; not on my
           | watch! But don't feel bad; "adjective" was originally an
           | adjective as well.
        
             | germinalphrase wrote:
             | Edited to save your neurologicals.
        
               | JasonFruit wrote:
               | Thanks. You did me a solid.
        
               | catskul2 wrote:
               | I see what you did there.
        
               | wizzwizz4 wrote:
               | I saw your do.
        
               | burning_hamster wrote:
               | The fact that your username is germinalphrase makes this
               | exchange so much better.
        
               | Wistar wrote:
               | Eponysterical.
        
         | UncleOxidant wrote:
         | I had pine mouth about 20 years ago. I switched over to using
         | walnuts in my pesto after that. But something in that video got
         | me wondering: The guy talks about how they let the cones
         | ferment for a couple of weeks before they extract the nuts -
         | but then later on says something about not letting them ferment
         | too long. I wonder if this is an Asian method of processing the
         | cones that isn't done in other areas of the world and if the
         | fermentation goes on too long will the nuts be effected and
         | give one pine mouth?
        
       | egberts1 wrote:
       | so about $10 for each 50lbs worth of selected pine cones.
       | 
       | and a single worker can get about 936 lbs per day. or $187/day
       | worth per worker.
       | 
       | whew. US migrants make more than that.
        
         | alisonkisk wrote:
         | How much do US migrants make?
        
       | jihadjihad wrote:
       | On-topic, pine cones are really interesting! They are the female
       | reproductive organs of the tree. The male cones produce pollen,
       | which gets captured by the female cone and fertilized into seeds
       | (pine nuts). The scales on the female cone open up slightly for
       | pollination, remain closed for fertilization, then open up again
       | once the seed is fully formed and ready to be released.
       | 
       | Off-topic, but I'm in a meeting so I watched the video with the
       | "Automated Captions" turned on. I didn't realize that the
       | captions will actually _overlay on top of_ the subtitles when
       | Chinese is being spoken--it results in some, eh, interesting
       | sentences:
       | 
       | "Dr. She, the one you need to do that kitchen."
       | 
       | "Long time. Your cakehole, who is Jonathan Joseph?"
        
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