Wood pulp (or cellulose) actually is a commonly used food additive. It adds fiber and can be used to thicken the consistency of a food product, or in some cases it can be used as an anti-clumping agent for food like shredded cheese.
It doesn’t require significant processing, historically people even might add sawdust to bread or other foods in times where food was hard to come by to make what they had last longer.
Cellulose doesn’t have significant nutritional value beyond fiber content, but it is fully safe to eat.
You can chemically break down cellulose into sugars, which are just glucose and quite digestible. But the process takes too much trouble to be worth doing.
One of the sources of artificial vanilla flavor is oxidation of lignin from wood. At one time, it was essentially a side product made by paper mills, since it could be made from waste materials in wood pulp production. Now the majority of artificial vanilla is made from petrochemicals though.
cellulose can be converted to simple sugars and is part of the process for creating cellulosic ethanol (which would be a plant-based substitute for gasoline). One benefit, relative to e.g. corn ethanol, is that it doesn’t divert food materials from human or animal consumption.
the steps of pretreatment and hydrolysis of the cellulose molecules into simple sugars like glucose is fairly chemical- and energy intensive. Also, we already have industrial processes that create incredibly cheap sugar, that isn’t really healthy for people to eat and we don’t really need more.
In addition to the good responses from others: grow mushrooms on it. Shiitake and oyster mushrooms (among many other edible species) are white-rot fungi, which break down all of the major components of wood including notoriously durable lignin.
Yes, we figured out a way to convert plenty of mostly inedible (not toxic, just that it provides little to no nutrition to humans) plant matter into food: fungi and livestock.
A lot of livestock were used to convert inedible or undesired feedstock into meat, eggs, or milk, including grass, leaves, bark, etc. For example, grain agriculture can leave a lot of inedible straw, which can be used as fuel, building material… or a supplement to animal feed. Goats will browse and eat from bushes and similarly unappetizing plant fare, and sheep do really well on meadow monocultures.
Similarly, fungi can break down decaying wood into human-available nutrition. It’s not uncommon to grow mushrooms in rotten logs or boxes of compressed wood shavings inoculated with mushroom spores.
Well, you can make alcohol from toilet paper its only half tedious.
You can also grow saprotrophic(or saprophytic, depending on who you ask) mushrooms. Specifically wood decaying ones that are edible, like shitake or oyster. Inky cap is also an option, but its rarely eaten due to the whole alcohol interaction.
And while often considered gross, many xylophagous (wood eating) insects are edible. First that come to mind are shipworms and termites which are actually commonly eaten.
But it should be mentioned, different woods contain different chemicals that can be problematic. All these that ive mentioned are heavily focused specifically on cellulose and lignin, the predominant constituents of most wood.
Wood is predominately lacking in nitrogen which we need to make protein. You can make sugar out of wood though, either enzymatically or chemically. Humans have ancient inactive genes to make sugar from cellulose, and some of the great apes do eat weak plant matter for energy.
Chemically though industry can break cellulose into alcohols. I wouldn’t drink it, but there are surely ways, however expensive, to further refine the cellulose sugars into their glucose monomers.
“safe” is a pretty broad spectrum. Cellulose is basically sawdust added to all sorts of food in place of higher calorie more expensive ingredients like flour but your body can’t digest it to get any nutritional value from it. Safe to consume and safe to consume for nutrition are different things.
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Wood pulp (or cellulose) actually is a commonly used food additive. It adds fiber and can be used to thicken the consistency of a food product, or in some cases it can be used as an anti-clumping agent for food like shredded cheese.
It doesn’t require significant processing, historically people even might add sawdust to bread or other foods in times where food was hard to come by to make what they had last longer.
Cellulose doesn’t have significant nutritional value beyond fiber content, but it is fully safe to eat.
You can chemically break down cellulose into sugars, which are just glucose and quite digestible. But the process takes too much trouble to be worth doing.
One of the sources of artificial vanilla flavor is oxidation of lignin from wood. At one time, it was essentially a side product made by paper mills, since it could be made from waste materials in wood pulp production. Now the majority of artificial vanilla is made from petrochemicals though.
cellulose can be converted to simple sugars and is part of the process for creating cellulosic ethanol (which would be a plant-based substitute for gasoline). One benefit, relative to e.g. corn ethanol, is that it doesn’t divert food materials from human or animal consumption.
the steps of pretreatment and hydrolysis of the cellulose molecules into simple sugars like glucose is fairly chemical- and energy intensive. Also, we already have industrial processes that create incredibly cheap sugar, that isn’t really healthy for people to eat and we don’t really need more.
In addition to the good responses from others: grow mushrooms on it. Shiitake and oyster mushrooms (among many other edible species) are white-rot fungi, which break down all of the major components of wood including notoriously durable lignin.
Yes, we figured out a way to convert plenty of mostly inedible (not toxic, just that it provides little to no nutrition to humans) plant matter into food: fungi and livestock.
A lot of livestock were used to convert inedible or undesired feedstock into meat, eggs, or milk, including grass, leaves, bark, etc. For example, grain agriculture can leave a lot of inedible straw, which can be used as fuel, building material… or a supplement to animal feed. Goats will browse and eat from bushes and similarly unappetizing plant fare, and sheep do really well on meadow monocultures.
Similarly, fungi can break down decaying wood into human-available nutrition. It’s not uncommon to grow mushrooms in rotten logs or boxes of compressed wood shavings inoculated with mushroom spores.
Well, you can make alcohol from toilet paper its only half tedious.
You can also grow saprotrophic(or saprophytic, depending on who you ask) mushrooms. Specifically wood decaying ones that are edible, like shitake or oyster. Inky cap is also an option, but its rarely eaten due to the whole alcohol interaction.
And while often considered gross, many xylophagous (wood eating) insects are edible. First that come to mind are shipworms and termites which are actually commonly eaten.
But it should be mentioned, different woods contain different chemicals that can be problematic. All these that ive mentioned are heavily focused specifically on cellulose and lignin, the predominant constituents of most wood.
Wood is predominately lacking in nitrogen which we need to make protein. You can make sugar out of wood though, either enzymatically or chemically. Humans have ancient inactive genes to make sugar from cellulose, and some of the great apes do eat weak plant matter for energy.
Chemically though industry can break cellulose into alcohols. I wouldn’t drink it, but there are surely ways, however expensive, to further refine the cellulose sugars into their glucose monomers.
sure
friedrich bergius patented his “holzverzuckerung” about a century ago, and he was not the first to hydrolyze cellulose by acid
i personally hydrolyzed hens’ feathers to an amino acid broth used as a flavoring for dog’s food
“safe” is a pretty broad spectrum. Cellulose is basically sawdust added to all sorts of food in place of higher calorie more expensive ingredients like flour but your body can’t digest it to get any nutritional value from it. Safe to consume and safe to consume for nutrition are different things.