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They can cause Pine Mouth. No joke.

They are a favourite with celebrity chefs and hailed as the latest healthy salad ingredient.

But a liberal sprinkling of pine nuts over your dinner could also leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

Increasing numbers of people have reported that after eating pine nuts, typically as a snack or in a pesto sauce, they have developed a foul, metallic taste in their mouth lasting for up to two weeks, making practically all food and drink unpalatable.

The first reports of 'pine mouth', as it has been dubbed, began last winter in the U.S. from those who had eaten imported Chinese pine nuts.

Now pine mouth has spread to Britain, and shoppers across the country are experiencing the same disturbing symptoms.- The Daily Mail

Do you know where your Pine Nuts came from? You might want to check.

Labels: China, Chinese, Chinese Imports, nuts, Public Health

Concealing discoveries of contaminated imported honey is immoral, unethical and often illegal -- and it happens far too often, U.S. honey producers say.

"It doesn't take a wizard to determine whether there are bad things in the honey we handle, nor a hero to do what it takes to keep it from our food supply," said Mark Brady, a Texas beekeeper who sits on the National Honey Board.

"If we buy Chinese honey, as we do far too often, we know it may contain chloramphenicol or some other antibiotic that is illegal in any food product," said Brady, who produces about a million pounds of honey a year. "To find it and not report it is criminal." - SeattlePI

Labels: bees, Chinese Imports, food safety, Honey

· Gilroy, Calif. is the “Garlic Capital of the World?”

· California produces 99 percent of U.S. garlic?

· Garlic is grown in Gilroy?

Answers: true, true, and false (almost).

“There is one garlic grower left in Gilroy — he has probably 30 acres in the corner of a vegetable field,” says (Bill) Christopher (of Christopher Ranch).

...China went from a measly 50,000 pounds of garlic a decade ago to 2 million to 3 million pounds last year, and for the first time more fresh garlic was imported into the U.S. than was produced in California.- Western Farm Press

Labels: California Agriculture, Chinese Imports, Garlic