Eating Tree Bark?

Can you really eat tree bark as a safe and nutritious wild food? What part of the tree bark is edible? Is there a specific type of tree that is more edible than the others? Somebody help me out here.

 

I have yet to hear that a tree bark can be eaten. The most I can say is the curative properties of a bark of a certain tree. There's also a bark called "gugo" that is used by old women in the olden days in place of shampoo. The bark is pounded while wet to make it look like fiber and then dried. That is later sold in the market as native shampoo which prevents baldness. There is also a tree bark that can be used as perfume or air scent. I'm not sure if it is the cedar tree. There are many other uses of tree barks but eating it is not in the list.

 

I...I don't know how the human gut could handle bark. Imaging just what bark would do to my intestines... I don't think I'd survive! Don't get me wrong, I've heard of people trying bark and having nothing bad happen from it, but I've never heard of bark being used as nourishment. While I know deer will sometimes eat bark in the wintertime if food is scare, they also have a different digestive system from humans.

Personally, I'd rather use bark in the matter that Corzhens described.

 

Indeed. I just think that it is important to be able to survive in any situation by using multiple methods. It is interesting to see what the bare minimal for surviving actually is when you consider how many people might starve to death simply because we usually lack the knowledge and gumption and your extensive list of edible tree bark is a testament to that. I appreciate it.

 

I work for a produce wholesaler and we supply all manner of gourmet restaurants, some o which like to really push the envelope in terms of culinary styling.
While people don't eat it per se, you can definitely get a good flavour from fish by smoking it in Paperbark.

As for eating it, you'd have to be pretty desperate. Like it'd be your last ditch effort at maybe surviving.

 

Eating bark actually isn't so strange. Native Americans sometimes would even use it as a dietary supplement because of its Vitamin C content. The bark can be cooked or even ground into flour to make bread. In survival situations, though, making bread is obviously not so practical. Birch, aspen, pine, willow, and maple trees are all commonly found and all have bark that is edible. Along with the bark of a pine tree, it's needles can also be used to make a nutritious tea and its seeds from pine cones can actually be tasty. As far as eating the bark, that's up to you. By no means is it harmful, but there are probably better options.

 

This makes so much sense and is exactly the type of information that I was looking for. Thank you, although I am not sure how an indigenous group of people would've been able to tell that there was vitamin c within the bark. Still good share, I appreciate it.

 

It wasn't so much that they knew that it contained Vitamin C or that they even knew what that was, but they recognized that it helped fight Vitamin C deficiency or the symptoms of it, which was a problem due to the foods that they ate/didn't eat.