I’m trying to resolve an argument.
EDIT: Yes, you can. But you can’t digest it. The only edible parts of a tree are some specific types of tree bark. Thanks, everyone!
Depends on your definition of “eat”.
If you mean “Can be chewed and swallowed without causing undue harm”, then, yeah, you can eat wood. Well, most wood, I’m sure there’s some out there that are some level of toxic to humans.
If you mean, “can be consumed as a source of nutrition”, then, no, you can’t eat wood. Humans lack the capability to digest it.
Cinnamon is tree bark.
i remember reading about how in some parts of the world (north America?) they used to process the wood of some trees to use as flour.
Humans do eat anything, I think the question should rather be "Can eating wood be nutritive or pleasant (or ethical 🤷)? "
Oh right, I just remembered that Norway did make something like “bark bread” in the past during famines, and that linked Wikipedia article says:
The inner bark is the only part of a tree trunk that is actually edible; the remaining bark and wood is made up of cellulose, which most animals, including humans, cannot digest.
I just got started testing Google Bard, so I fed this question to it and got this reply:
No, humans cannot eat wood. Wood is made of cellulose, which is a type of fiber that is not digestible by humans. If you eat wood, it will pass through your digestive system without being absorbed. In some cases, eating wood can cause blockages in the digestive tract, which can be dangerous.
There are some animals that can eat wood, such as termites and beavers. These animals have special enzymes that help them to digest cellulose. Humans do not have these enzymes, so we cannot eat wood without getting sick.
What about those dried wood snacks?
dried wood snacks?
I have never heard of this and I can’t find anything online.
Got a link?
I think our dude’s been eating potpouri.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/oak-bark
Ohh, so it seems like bark is edible but wood isn’t. Definitely chimes with other answers above.
So what you are saying is, we just need to put wood and beaver enzymes in a blender…
Bard says “we” cannot eat wood… OK Bard, then try a Cheeseburger.
Bard is wrong. Look at any vitamin/supplement type pill bottle. Cellulose is listed in almost every one.
I looked up cellulose and it does say that it is used in some drugs and other consumables yeah, but it’s still indigestible, so it wouldn’t give you any nutrients to survive if eaten by itself, I guess.
One of my favorite YouTube videos from William Osman How Much Sawdust Can You Put In A Rice Crispy?
Depends on the wood. Some wood we use for spices like cinnamon so you’ve probably already eaten that. But other types of wood are considered toxic not only to consume, but to the plants around it. Take what I say with a grain of salt as I’m certainly no expert on the matter.
Hemlock comes to mind, as with or without your proffered grain of salt, it can be eaten but is definitely not edible. Those defs are posted in a non-pedantic way above, incidentally.
Also, thanks for the chance to use the word ‘proffered’ in conversation, it’s vanishingly rarely used outside the legal field.
I think you’re confusing the hemlock tree https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuga
With poison hemlock https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conium_maculatum
The tree makes the best bedtime tea I’ve ever had. The herb is a common poison notorious for killing Socrates. You’re still technically accurate, but they’re very different plants.
I should think you can, depending on the wood, many can be toxic.
The bark of a Willow tree is used to make Aspirin, we smoke paper and eat many plants with less woody stems. There are certain other barks and cambium (the soft layer between the bark and the wood) that contain nutrients, such as birch, pine, elm and a few others that have been eaten by our ancestors for centuries and even have medicinal properties. We also grate cinnamon and a few others as spice. Dog food is often bulked up with ash.
The real issue is that the hard cellulose in the actual wood part is not particularly digestible and basically pure fibre and devoid of any real nutrient value. So it would need to be boiled or blended first I imagine, or steeped as a tea. It would be revolting or taste like nothing and probably give you constipation but I doubt you would die.
As a raw bite of a chunk of wood, no. It would be considered inedible.
There’s only one way to resolve this argument and one of you isn’t going to like it
Food theory covered this in terms of Christmas trees. The answer is yes, mostly, with a lot of caveats, and also probably not really.
*Parmesan has entered the chat *
Eat: put (food) into the mouth and chew and swallow it.
Edible: fit or suitable to be eaten.
Can you eat wood? Yes. Is it edible? Not generally.
Cellulose is an ingredient in a lot of foods, and some might call it wood pulp?
Wood is just less than half cellulose by weight, so wood must be safe to easy.
This mercury sandwich is just less than half bread by weight, so it must be safe to eat.
still at least part of wood though, a part that’s edible, as far as I’m aware, mercury has none of those (adding the bread, and extra ingredient, is cheating).
If something is part edible and part not, then it really depends on the nature of that not edible bit. If it’s inert, then great. If it’s not, then you could be kinda fucked.
The fact that something is 45% edible says precisely nothing about whether or not it is edible.
I never said otherwise (nor argued that all wood was edible in its entirety), but your comparison was still a bad one.
You think a mercury sandwich isn’t a realistic representation of wood.
Wow, you know, after careful consideration I think you may be right. Thanks for your wisdom. Truly enlightening.
I’ll go eat some wood.
You can eat absolutely anything at least once.
“All mushrooms are edible. Some are only edible once.” - Terry Pratchett
💀
I think that completely depends on your definition of wood.
