Food Theory: I Ate My Whole Christmas Tree... And So Can You!

all right uh we're gonna go with this blue spruce excellent choice you know on my tree farm we sometimes eat the spruce tip straight off these things wait are you are you telling me i can eat this christmas tree certain parts of it sure uh actually i take that back the whole thing's technically non-toxic so i suppose if somebody did enough research and got a bit creative they could um ah sorry he gets this way whenever he comes up with an idea for a theory episode you should just ring us up before he eats your tree [Music] hello internet welcome to food theory the show that puts weird stuff in its mouth to put weird knowledge into your brain theorists the holidays are almost over and i don't know about you but one of the things that's always really sad for me at the end of the season is seeing curbs littered with christmas trees on garbage day there's all that christmas cheer just dead and lifeless waiting to be carted off to the dump welcome to january y'all so this year i wanted to do something about it i mean if it's just gonna go to the curb come january could it actually go into my stomach no that's not a joke like if i really wanted to could i eat my entire christmas tree did this year put me in a weird mental place absolutely will i apologize for this theory not a chance this is what you get when matpat starts a food channel people now let's go eat a tree alright so let's take a step back my thought process wasn't quite so random if you didn't already know spruce tips the light green new growth at the end of spruce branches are used to make all sorts of food products spruce tip jellies spruce tip teas spruce tip beers shortbreads ice creams syrups candied spruce tips and never mind the fact that you can eat them raw straight off the tree in the springtime steph and i ordered some to try and i gotta say not bad do they taste like a forest you betcha but surprisingly enough they also have a really strong citrus taste this is because spruce trees as well as plenty of other coniferous trees happen to be jam-packed with vitamin c just like citrus fruits so here's where today's theory is headed friends i want to know how far we can take it can i eat my entire christmas tree and the answer is yeah i think so at the very least i am about to try right off the bat we need to get one thing straight not every kind of tree is non-toxic not every kind of evergreen tree is non-toxic so listen up cause matpat doesn't want to hear your bellyaching about your belly's aching don't go munching on needles from your christmas tree unless you know the exact species of it i very specifically selected a blue spruce as the christmas tree for today's experiment for instance the ponderosa pine has been known to cause miscarriage in cattle who eat large amounts of the tree so it's recommended that women who might be pregnant steer clear of consuming ponderosa pine needles and other types of evergreens just to be safe if you're pregnant consult your doctor before joining us on our journey of spruce consumption the common you and savin juniper are other examples of evergreens that are known to be toxic to humans also also if you're a fan of artificial trees today's episode isn't gonna really help you out either now then what do we know about the edibility of spruce trees specifically quite a bit as it turns out and we could thank the indigenous americans for a lot of that many tribes experimented with spruce pine and fir trees in their diets since evergreens were a readily available source of vitamin c in the winter months and that's especially useful info for us because we're specifically interested in eating christmas trees at that time of year sure spruce tips are the most popular spruce based food out there but those are most prevalent in the spring when new growth is occurring so what about the tree in late december what parts of a christmas tree can a guy like me snack on in the dead of winter between swigs of eggnog and bites of gingerbread first off let's talk needles whereas spruce tips are the young baby needles if you will the vast majority of the needles on a spruce tree in winter are gonna be mature tougher thicker and less vibrant in color now the mature needles aren't toxic but they're certainly a lot less tasty so if you want to consume mature spruce needles making a tea out of them is recommended all right so what we'll need for this one is one tablespoon of chopped needles we're going to heat up some water in the background and then we're going to let it steep for 15 minutes this is not a spur of the moment cup of tea that we're making it is a long brew this is one of those times dear viewer at home that you wish you had smell-o-vision because it does actually very much smell like christmas i have no idea how this is gonna taste no clue but if it tastes anything like it smells it'll be like it just bit a hunk off of a tree which is what we're gonna be doing here in a minute fun fact we've got the needles in the cup and we're just going to fill it to literally one cup of water and then just leave it alone this is boiling 15 minutes later bottoms up i've tried a lot of teas in my time i'm really excited about this [Music] so good it's not good there's no way to call this good and i love all kinds of teas i am not particularly discriminating i feel like i'm very open-minded about my tea nope not a chance certainly not not a chance okay so the mature needles are way way less delicious than the spruce tips but we've technically figured out a way to use the mature needles in our diet and that's good enough for me let's move on to the cones now it turns out that the cones are best to eat when they're young just like the needles same principle when spruce cones are still immature and green you can take a bite right out of them like corn on the cob kind of like how this guy did after tossing a spruce cone onto the barbecue to soften it up a bit now of course the new growth cones are more readily available in the spring so us december tree eaters are going to be more concerned about how to deal with the mature cones and unfortunately you're not gonna be able to take a bite straight out of these guys but mature cones do contain seeds you can shake these seeds free of the cones once they've been dried now the seeds are really small and unsubstantial definitely more of a squirrel-sized treat than a human-sized but they are an edible part of the cone and go really nicely on salads next up is my personal favorite the resin from the spruce tree you'll often find resin on parts of the tree that have been cut or damaged and it's another spruce product that you just pop straight into your mouth if you like doing that gives you something that can be chewed kinda like gum i mean how fun is that now unfortunately our christmas tree didn't really have any resin on it but spruce gum is a thing it's apparently easy to make if you have access to resin if we're able to get our hands on a resin-laden christmas tree next year we'll let you know how it goes speaking of things that can be eaten straight off the spruce tree let's talk bark the inner bark of the spruce tree has calories and has a soft spongy texture that makes it easy enough to eat now i'm not talking about the outer bark that you can see when you're looking at the tree in the woods right there that's the good stuff right there or at least that's the moderately edible stuff right there this is that inner bark it's nice and soft and squishy it's kind of spongy it feels almost like a mushroom ooh it's kind of sticky so this is actually what you can just peel up and eat [Music] yep it's tree it's me eating a tree you know it sort of has the consistency of like a raw coconut it's very dry my saliva is just getting sucked right into this stuff it's like a big sponge oh wow it's definitely bitter it's woodsy but it's mitigated by the fact that you are smelling a lovely bouquet of pot i think i've had enough of that maybe are you sure we have a whole christmas tree to get through stuff oh all right so maybe it's not the most delicious part of the tree and if you eat too much of it you'll probably get a stomachache from having too much fiber but it has calories and there are ways to prepare it that actually makes spruce park a pretty high-end delicacy certain french cheeses come wrapped in spruce bark for instance so let's take stock of all the parts of the spruce tree that we've already covered needles check cones check the seeds are edible in the winter and the cone itself is best eaten in the spring spruce resin check bark pseudo check the inner bark is good to go the outer bark is well it's going to be more challenging to digest which means it's time to introduce the catch-all known as spruce beer folks this wondrous non-alcoholic beer is a very old very unique fizzy drink that involves fermenting the very essence of spruce trees traditional recipes basically utilize every part of the spruce twig the needles the cones the bark everything you grind it all up you add some sugar you ferment it and the result is more or less a forest soda and the taste is um the taste is intense it smells like christmas tastes like christmas too it is potent if the spruce tea was not ever greeny enough for you well consider washing it down with some spruce beer oh it's so good it's all so delicious take a bite out of mother nature with spruce beer why this was such a stupid idea for an episode it was either this or the fact that fruitcakes actually need three years to be properly timed why didn't i go with fruitcakes why was i like yeah let's eat a tree and with that we've covered pretty much every part of the tree needles cones seeds bark wait what am i missing oh yeah literally the entire rest of the tree i'm talking of course about the actual wood the xylem the heartwood what's a weirdo christmas tree eater supposed to do with all that well i can assure you from personal experience that it's too hard to chew it tastes terrible i mean sure it's non-toxic but it's not exactly what i'd call edible there's gotta be a way though we've come so far to get bested by the part of the tree that's well basically the entire tree well theorists what if i told you that i've already eaten wood from a spruce tree and you have to what if i told you that the wood is the part of the spruce tree that humans actually consume the most folks it's time we talked about wood pulp you may know it as the material that's used to make paper but did you know that it's also used to make food and i'm talking all sorts of food parmesan cheese tomato sauce ice cream see wood pulp which can be found listed on ingredients labels under names like cellulose powder cellulose gel and cellulose gum is a very very very common additive in food products it can be used to affect the texture of foods in useful ways it can keep parmesan cheese flakes from clumping together it can make the texture of ice cream creamier and sometimes wood pulp is just thrown into there so the manufacturer can brag about the food being high in fiber and one of the most common pulpwoods out there is you guessed it the spruce so there you have it theorists you can indeed eat your entire spruce christmas tree and in fact you may have already gotten yourself a head start without even knowing it sure eating your tree is a bit more complicated than busting out a fork and knife in the middle of your living room and sure it's not the most delicious thing you'll ever eat but with enough patience and food preparation there's no part of the tree that you couldn't feasibly incorporate into your diet if you're worried about preparing a christmas feast this holiday season don't worry the feast was sitting in your living room the entire time but hey it's just a theory the food theory oh god it's so piney happy holidays and thanks for watching food theory since you're in the spirit of the season be sure to check out our episode on chocolate turns out some of your favorite holiday chocolates might not actually be chocolate at all that's right it's a chocolate santa scandal done and since it is the season of giving you might want to give this channel a subscription

Channel: The Food Theorists

Views: 2,230,852

Rating: 4.9507461 out of 5

Keywords: christmas, holiday, christmas tree, eat your christmas tree, christmas recipe, holiday recipe, christmas food, christmas dinner, christmas tree decorating, christmas tree dress, how to get christmas tree skin, rockefeller christmas tree 2020, rockefeller christmas tree, dollar tree christmas, eat christmas tree, decorate christmas tree, food theorists, food theory, matpat, film theory, game theory, binging with babish, eat the menu, without a recipe, new year

Id: O1X0-bQpXvw

Length: 11min 25sec (685 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/druciferq]

I love how clickbaity the title sounds, and then you watch it and it's legit about the edibility of an evergreen.

[u/Emerald_Dragon2005]

Did mat get a haircut?!

[u/indiegamer122]

I see mat is turning into a Herbivore

[u/jalongames]

Vegans be like

[u/JanuryFirstCakeDay]

Technically no because he says its a winter time tree and doesn't say how to eat cones other than the seeds. Unless they are including in the dust stuff

[u/AnimeBro947]

The real question is why

[u/[deleted]]

How appetizing.

[u/BakonPlatinum]

Logic: Aight, Imma head out

[u/Cacofuniegoo]

I already made a Meme out of the scene; "it was either this or this." LoL