Please Don’t Eat Your Old Christmas Tree

It’s that unfortunate time of year when we all have to dispose of our beloved Christmas trees. This can be a rather sobering ritual. What was once a gorgeous, glittering display of green conifer needles and bright white and red baubles is commonly thrown into the street with yesterday’s trash like some sort of ill-disposed corpse. Or, if you’re from Belgium, you could be literally devouring your tree in some sort of misguided effort to “recycle.”

Yes, the Belgian government was recently forced to issue a strange PSA warning its citizens not to eat their old Christmas trees.

“Christmas trees are not destined to end up in the food chain”, Hélène Bonte, spokeswoman for the agency, he told the New York Times on wednesday She added: “There is a difference between using needles from pristine nature and needles from specially grown trees for Christmas and to be decorated at home.”

The reason the authorities were forced to make this statement is that the government of Ghent, a city in the northern part of the country, recently suggested that its residents use the needles left from their trees to make “a delicious spruce needle butter,” that may be. eaten with toast and other baked goods. A web page promote the reuse of holiday resources by encouraging locals to pick needles from their old trees and immerse them in boiling water. “When the needles are dry, you can make a delicious spruce needle butter for bread or toast,” the page reads, calling the process a “piece of cake” and a way to ensure that “your Christmas tree doesn’t it’s not 100% rejection.”

The problem with broiling your old Christmas tree needles is a lot has been sprayed intensively with various pesticides. Also, some types of tree needles they are inherently poisonous.

The heart of Ghent seems to have been in the right place, since they were obviously encouraging their residents not to waste food and resources that went to celebrate the holidays. That said, not all forms of recycling are created equal.

The push to get people to eat their Christmas trees was dreamed up by the city’s climate team, which was looking for ways to promote sustainability and recycling. “The social media post about the culinary uses of Christmas tree needles fits into a wider context of reuse, recycling and the circular economy,” the local government told The Times, in a email.

Gent’s web page currently has a passage that says, “Note: not all Christmas trees are edible,” before listing some of the potential health issues with scarfing down your former tree.