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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community space dedicated to being helpful and answering each others’ questions on various topics.
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All posts titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That’s it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it’s in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content. Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Partnered Communities
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
Matrix Chat Room
To find & join our chat room, log into fluffychat.im(or any other matrix client) and put #nostupidquestions:matrix.org on the search bar.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
Sure you can but you probably shouldn’t…
I just got started testing Google Bard, so I fed this question to it and got this reply:
What about those dried wood snacks?
I have never heard of this and I can’t find anything online.
Got a link?
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.
I think our dude’s been eating potpouri.
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.
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.
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 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:
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.
Cinnamon is tree bark.
One of my favorite YouTube videos from William Osman How Much Sawdust Can You Put In A Rice Crispy?
Food theory covered this in terms of Christmas trees. The answer is yes, mostly, with a lot of caveats, and also probably not really.
You can eat absolutely anything at least once.
“All mushrooms are edible. Some are only edible once.” - Terry Pratchett
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.
I too have been through the trial of the sword
There’s only one way to resolve this argument and one of you isn’t going to like it
*Parmesan has entered the chat *
I think that completely depends on your definition of wood.
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.