Wood into Food?

a reply to: swanne

Hi Swanne.

Pass the Maple-Syrup, so we may put a spoonful in our Geneva™ ti-gin chaud ! ( Hot gin toddy, but Swanne knew that ) .

Are we looking to curb our monthly spending on Metamucil™ ?

Not too many creatures feed on mature pine/spruce needles, but in the spring, one can nibble on the fresh bright green sprouts, the new growth on the tips of branches. Deliciosa !

The good members of ATS have spoken, and in their collective wisdom, suggest we look at what is happening all around the animal-world.

Except porcupines. Forget about porcupines.
They eat rubber, plastic, plywood, particle-board, brake-lines, etc... Synthetic crap.
Along with tree-bark, and young chutes, but they seem to love glue more than natural stuff.
If there is a God: porcupines would be proof that he/she/they/it has a sense of humour.


(Don't really 'know' these things. They are merely opinion/belief/temporary ideas/observations/thoughts/concepts).

good pun, I Lol'd.

a reply to: 38181

Seems to me about 20 years ago a food producer/baker tried making a full grain type bread made from cellulose. It was all the rage for a couple weeks, in the news, and then something came about and it disappeared off advertisements and shelves.

It's been a while, but I distinctly remember a Bread made from wood Cellulose...

a reply to: TheLieWeLive

Maybe they could make a paste of sawdust and termites and the termites would provide the enzymes necessary for digestion.
Sounds yummy does it not?

a reply to: Homefree

Mmmmmmmmm: sawdust.....


Why isn't it called 'wood-dust' ?

Shouldn't sawdust, be from a saw, crumbling into dust ?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I have thought about that. But consider this: cultivating rice is much longer of a process than grabbing fallen wood from trees. Up here in Quebec, when you walk in the forest, not all the trees are standing. It's not like those artificially beautified pictures you see in magazines. Not at. In truth, the forest is very messy. Every day I get out and collect wood that have fallen - tree branches destroyed by freezing rains, trees that fell from gusts of wind. You'd be surprised how much wood that represents; and I don't have to cut a single tree.

Whereas consider rice. You need to either find or produce a large body of water, then let rice grow in that. There are no forests. You cut down forests to make your farm. The same applies to wheat. Whereas in the wood option, you are actually looking to encourage forests and their growth.

There's also the preparation time. Rice, contrary to popular belief, doesn't come ready to eat off the plant. No, you have to parch the grain for several days on a field (once again it has to be tree-free for the sun to pass). Then rub the hull from the grain, then process it. The whole process is surprisingly lengthy, whereas the method discovered to extract glucose from wood take only an hour.

a reply to: swanne

There's also the preparation time. Rice, contrary to popular belief, doesn't come ready to eat off the plant. No, you have to parch the grain for several days on a field (once again it has to be tree-free for the sun to pass). Then rub the hull from the grain, then process it. The whole process is surprisingly lengthy, whereas the method discovered to extract glucose from wood take only an hour.

True, rice is a pain to harvest, but my guess is that billions of people would rather eat rice than wood glucose.

A little side story, there is an old folk saying, "would you rather work in the rice field, or watch a baby?"
Everyone picks rice field, even though it is back breaking work to show how hard raising kids are.

The life cycle of trees is just way to long to make it worth it for anything other than short term augmentation of the food supply, assuming of course you could develop a low cost efficient way of doing it. It would be far more beneficial to grow more traditional crops instead... and taste better too.

Truth is there really isn't a world wide food shortage, but there is a food waste problem. There is of course localized shortages caused by things such as natural disasters, drought, war, etc.. turning trees into food isn't a viable solution for these, just getting existing food there is.

Heck if the global warming thing is true that would actually be a benefit to food production by opening more land currently in colder latitudes to food production.

each time I hold a log, I can't help but feel that instead of firewood it could perhaps be used to solve hunger.

You can turn your logs into mushrooms.
There are companies that sell wooden dowels that have been innoculated with mushroom
spawn. You drill holes in the log and insert the dowels .
Then place the log in a place suitable for mushroom growth.

The U.S. throws away 40% of its food daily.

Maybe you can find a way to redirect your use of wood like, say...

Build a boat to ship the 40% you can retrieve and ship it somewhere where people are hungry.

Just sayin.....

a reply to: baddmove

Good point. very good point.

a reply to: swanne

I would be careful about eating wood there mate.



The above is the result of my Dog eating a cocktail stick found outside.

Punctured her intestines, poisoned her uterus and lower abdomen, one very lucky dog to be alive and the best part of £1000 in vets bills.

a reply to: baddmove

That's not just a US problem all the same.

Roughly a third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year, approximately 1.3 billion tonnes, gets lost or wasted.

Food losses and waste amount to roughly US$ 680 billion in industrialized countries and US$ 310 billion in developing countries.

And as you suggest its the logistics that are the major problem.

Cellulose is already being used in food to bulking agent. That is why people can buy $7 fast food pizzas and cheap hamburgers/chicken sandwiches.

Homeless or hungry? Decisions, decisions.

a reply to: SkinnySteve

Why are those mutually exclusive?

Why can't we solve both?....

a reply to: andy06shake

You wouldn't eat sticks, obviously. The wood would probably be broken down into a fine powder to maximize surface area during processing for its transformation into sugar.

a reply to: swanne

Well, it seems to work for Termites, and we have even been known to eat the likes of those at a push.

a reply to: andy06shake

Lol