A tree is only for Christmas, not for dinner, Belgian meals company warns | Belgium

At a time when most individuals have in all probability polished off their vacation leftovers, Belgium’s meals company has issued a shocking seasonal well being warning: don’t eat your Christmas tree.

The message on Tuesday got here after the town of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold within the nation’s northern Flanders area, raised eyebrows by posting suggestions for recycling the conifers on the dinner desk.

Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the city web site steered needles might be stripped, blanched and dried – to be used in making flavoured butter, as an example.

Requested what they considered the concept, the reply from Belgium’s federal company for meals chain safety, AFSCA, was a powerful “No.”

“Christmas timber will not be destined to enter the meals chain,” it mentioned in a press release.

“There is no such thing as a manner to make sure that consuming Christmas timber is secure – both for folks or animals,” it mentioned, citing the possible presence of pesticides on most timber cultivated for the season.

“What’s extra, there isn’t any simple manner for shoppers to inform if Christmas timber have been handled with flame retardant – and never understanding that might have critical, even deadly penalties,” the company warned.

“Briefly, there are lots of causes to not promote nor encourage the re-use of Christmas timber within the meals chain,” it mentioned.

Seemingly taking the warning on board, the town tweaked its publish – altering its headline from “Eat your Christmas tree” to learn as a substitute: “Scandinavians eat their Christmas timber.”