No Stupid Questions

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.

Wood is mostly cellulose and lignin, which holds no nutritional value to us humans. Another comment said that termites have certain enzymes which digest it, but it's actually the bacteria in their guts which break down the woody fibres so they can turn it into glucose. So, theoretically, maybe we could isolate those bacteria and somehow incorporate them into our guts too? I mean it probably wouldn't work, but you never know until you try right?

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.

You can ingest it, but you can't digest it and it won't provide much if any nutrition. It'll probably make you constipated though.

Food theory covered this in terms of Christmas trees. The answer is yes, mostly, with a lot of caveats, and also probably not really.

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.

Saw dust have been mixed with flour multiple time in history during famine period. However it was mostly done to increase profit, not for its nutritional value and multiple bakers have been killed by angry mob because of that.

Wood has no nutritional value to humans, but a few things come close:

The center of banana tree trunks are cooked and eaten, and a common parts of some asian dishes, but they aren't really "wood".

The inner part of tree bark is digestible by humans, but it is not classified as "wood" either.

You can eat absolutely anything at least once.

This guy Jesse on Alone Season 5 was running out of food and had read about native tribes creating bread from tree bark, so he stripped some off a pine tree and ate it. It seemed edible but hard to pass. The video shows the aftermath, basically he had to tap out and be rescued due to severe abdominal pain. However, apparently it is a thing, I'm not sure how you could do it in a way your stomach can handle though, and most likely it has to be specific species of trees.

One of my favorite YouTube videos from William Osman How Much Sawdust Can You Put In A Rice Crispy?

if you are a beaver Lol

*Parmesan has entered the chat *

You can eat anything if you’re brave enough

The real question is "Can a woodchuck Norris?"

Sure you can but you probably shouldn't..

Does bamboo count? It's a common wood flooring and cutting board option. Lots of furniture is made from it. It's used like wood, even though it doesn't grow quite the same as a normal tree. And people have been eating bamboo shoots for a long time.

Yes, and you probably have unknowingly eaten it.

https://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends-news/article/parmesan-wood-pulp-cellulose

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 🤷)? "

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.

💀

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.

There's only one way to resolve this argument and one of you isn't going to like it

I think that completely depends on your definition of wood.