Has anyone else experienced the phenomena of tongue numbness after eating celery? Why does this happen? Why Why Why? I have a meeting in 5 minutes and I’m talking like I just licked a a metal pole in winter…
I’m a big fan of celery. I enjoy the crunch and the delicate taste. I think it makes a great flavor additive to soups and stews. I think its status as a vegetable is highly underrated. I put celery in everything until my wife tells me to stop.
However, as you may have inferred from the lack of response to your question, celery-induced numbness seems to be a rare condition.
Some possibilities:
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Someone is tampering with your celery. Is your spouse/significant other/boyfriend/girlfriend/co-worker/mother mad at you? Do any other foods have an odd taste? A metallic tang? Is your hair falling out?
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You are chewing more than celery. Have someone watch you while you chew a few stalks. Are you chewing your tongue as well? Is it really gross to watch someone eat celery? If they weren’t mad enough to poison your celery before, are they mad enough after seeing this?
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Hi Opal!
Celery has a high concentration of chemicals known as furanocoumourans. These are actually quite toxic. The main concentration is normally found in the celery root, but as the stalk gets older and starts to wilt/rot, the concentration in the stalk rises. Furanocourmourans are toxic by themselves, but when activated by UV light, they produce chemicals that can cause severe blisters and burns. I have a friend who works in celery fields; her legs are always covered in a nasty rash from it. I also read in the Lancet (I will dig up the actual reference when I have a chance) about a woman who ate an entire celery root, then went to the tanning salon, resulting in 3rd degree burns over her entire body.
So anyway, it is probably the furanocourmourans that you are having a reaction to. some people are allergic to even the small amounts found in fresh stalks.
Mozman
Hey Mozman!
Nobody appreciates a smartass. If you don’t know the answer just say so!
You aren’t crazy. I too have noticed a very slight mouth numbness after eating celery, similar to the numbing action of cloves, but less powerful. Mozman is right about there being toxins in celery. Wild celery is quite dangerous, but cultivated celery is much less so. Celery was used as a medicine long before it was used as food, but I don’t know what it was a treatment for.
Wow! That why I love the SDMB. RE the OP’s question I was curious also, and I looked in google and altavisa and couldn’t find anything. Thanks Mozman you’re a credit to your thread.
From Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages
http://www-ang.kfunigraz.ac.at/~katzer/engl/index.html
But after doing Google searches on all the compounds above I find no mention of anesthetic properties in any of them.
The condition that celery was used for medicinally was known as hyperlinguisensitivityism. For many years, people were puzzled by the fact that sometimes their tongues felt extremely normal and they could taste and feel everything quite well. Early shamans and hippocratic medicinal officers (HMOs) discovered that for the cost of a stalk of celery, they could remedy this unusual situation. They began prescribing celery for their patients and charging them hefty fees. The practice fell out of favor (except the part about charging a lot for a little), and now we only use the material as a flavoring in Bloody Marys. No one actually eats the stuff anymore, except in emergency coctail party situations and in backwoods tuna salad recipes. Glad to be of help. You’re welcome.
Hi All-
The reference I was thinking of did not involve a tanning salon, but instead involved celery/parsnip soup, medicine and a phototoxic effect. I still have to dig up the tanning salon article, but it will take me a while to remember where I saw it.
The original reference was in the British Journal of Dermatology volume 135 pp. 330-345 (1996), and was summarized in a news iten in the Lancet volume 348, number 9029 (1996) (where I saw it). I don’t have the original Br. J. Dermatol article, so i’ll give what the Lancet said:
“A patient with life-long atopic eczema who had been successfully treated with PUVA for 9 months unexpectedly developed a phototoxic reaction. When questioned, she said that she had eaten home-made soup containing celery,parsnip, and parsley the previous evening and again 2 hours before treatment. Celery, parsnip, and parsley all contain psoralens, and the authors suggest that the patient’s phototoxicity was due to the additive effects of the psoralens in the soup and the prescribed drug.”
<Note: By the was, psoralens are a general group of chemicals that include furanocourmourans>
I’ll be back when I find out more.
Mozman
Furanocoumouran induced phototoxicity is one possiblity. Or it could be that celery is very boring and your tongue is falling asleep.
I fail to see how phototoxicity has anything to to with the question of tongue numbness originally posed by iksova.
You guys are waaaaay too kewl!
Now I have the answer, but I don’t GET the answer…
Does this mean I was eating rotten celery? Huh?
Maybe this isn’t one of those earth shattering must know kinda things, but it sure keeps me awake at night…
Having a numb tongue makes your panties fall off?
Ahhh, NOW it all makes sense…
Celery also makes my tongue numb and it is not the furo-coumarine bergaptene.
I work a lot with foods and this is not harmful. It is not common, but it is a case with a some people, often the ones with more sensitive pallets.
I too was curious about this odd effect, because most of my friends and family do not have this effect either. I have been eating celery for years. I do not really like it because of this numbing thing it does to me, but it is good for you, being negative Calories and all that jazz.
I found this as the best reference at the moment for you 
Quote from:
People may be cruel and careless with the earth, but you do not have to be afraid of the right foods from the right sources… unless you are allergic to them HAHAHA! No this numbing effect is not an allergic reaction. <3
C. Hawkins <3
“Th’ abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power”
Great link Dijon. That was a lot of fun!
someone had this same question on another site:
http://www.finecooking.com/item/14463/numbing-celery
answer :
P.S. I noted this numbing before, and it is usually if I eat some of the greener parts close to the ends or the really green outer parts of a stalk. The lighter green inner parts don’t seem to numb my tongue and mouth as much. Also, cooked celery doesn’t seem to be a problem.
Celery: making mouths numb for 11 years.