PSA: Don’t Eat Your Christmas Tree

Posted: January 14, 2025 at 10:13 am

The food safety agency in Belgium is warning people not to eat their Christmas trees. Not kidding. The Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain made the surprising statement after the city of Ghent recommended using the needles in recipes, in its list of ways to recycle Christmas trees. The city’s website says: “In Scandinavia, they have been doing it for a long time: picking the needles from the branches, briefly immersing them in boiling water, pouring them through a sieve and drying them on a clean cloth. Once the needles are dry, you can make delicious spruce needle butter with them for bread or toast.” The food safety agency responded by pointing out the fact that commercially grown Christmas trees are usually treated with pesticides and other dangerous chemicals, including flame retardant. Later, Ghent edited the post on its website, changing the wording from “eat your Christmas tree” to “Scandinavians eat their Christmas trees” and included the warning: “not all Christmas trees are edible.”