Food safe timbers

[Wildman]

Does anyone have a list of food safe timbers that could be used treated or not for various utensils etc.
Is eucaluptus food safe for example

 

[woodpig]

I must admit I have no idea but can I have a free guess and say fruit woods to start?! :lol:

 

[Woodmonkey]

Beech and maple are commonly used for cooking or eating utensils

 

[KimG]

Ash and Sycamore are OK, they get used a lot for foodware, don't know about Eucalyptus, not all that good to turn, tends to move a lot.

 

[Jacob]

At a guess I'd say nearly all wood is food safe. I don't know of a toxic wood. Other parts of the plant may be - Laburnam seeds frinstance and many wood dusts are not healthy. But wood itself should be OK. No doubt someone will come along shortly with a long list of deadly timbers!

 

[Paul Hannaby]

Laburnum wood is most definitely poisonous and so is yew.

Here are a few links to lists of hazardous/toxic wood. If your chosen wood isn't on any list, it's probably ok!

http://www.uic.edu/sph/glakes/harts1/HARTS_library/woodhazards.txt
http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-allergies-and-toxicity/
http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/wis30.pdf

Bear in mind that trees manage to live for so long by repelling invasive insects, animals, fungi, parasitic plants and other competitors and often they do so by using one form of obnoxious compound or other so it's hardly surprising some of them don't agree with us!

 

[Jacob]

...
Bear in mind that trees manage to live for so long by repelling invasive insects, animals, fungi, parasitic plants and other competitors ,,,

Applies to most life forms not just trees.
Long lists! Well yes we know that wood dust is harmful, yes to avoiding ingestion of wood itself, yes to sap and green wood in some species, but most of these hazards apply to an industrial or workshop environment.
I'm pretty sure that a utensil made with almost any dry wood is going to be harmless as long as (some species) you don't eat it or suck it.

 

[MartinCox]

Look up the Royal Botanical Garden (Kew) website about yew and it shows that the experts are not certain about the toxicity of, for example, drinking from a yew vessel. Their final say is that it would seem sensible not to.

If this is what the academic experts in the plant world say, I think I would play safe on this one and not use yew in contact with food.

 

[woodpig]

Olive wood is very popular for utensils these days and looks very nice. I remember now that Birch is favoured for Kuksa (drinking cups) by many folks.

 

[Dee J]

Remember that just because a particular wood isn't actually poisonous doesn't mean you'd necessarily want to eat you dinner off it! Any strongly aromatic wood (maybe eucalyptus) is likely to taint/flavour food stuffs in contact with them. And of course beware of the mix of oak, water and iron/steel and the resultant black staining.

 

[Richard Findley]

I was chatting to a friend about this a while ago. His friend is some sort of science type person (it's always a friend of a friend, isn't it?!) and when asked if Yew is poisonous, his reply was yes, but it depends how many kilos you eat as to how poisonous!!!

I agree with Jacob that most seasoned timbers should be safe, BUT especially if selling them, extreme caution should be exercised. Beech, Sycamore, Maple and fruit woods are a core of certainties.

Richard

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I did read somewhere that yew dust would make you very ill if you ate more than 3 1/2oz of it.

 

[CHJ]

On the basis that a small handful of Yew leaves will kill a large horse, I avoid it's use for anything that might lend itself to holding liquid for consumption or moist food such as dressed salads, when using for other Treen I make sure that any internals that may be used to house dried foods etc. are given a good coat of sealer.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

I appreciate it's not the wood but would anybody feel comfortable selling products made from this particular tree, regardless how "safe" dry etc they are. I mean it's just common sense isn't it? Isn't it?

 

[Jacob]

I've got several regularly used bits and bobs made of yew and we ain't dead yet. Needles and berries yes - this is well known, timber no.

 

[woodpig]

You can eat the flesh of Yew berries and they taste very nice, it's the pip inside that is poisonous.

 

[clk230]

You can eat Rhubarb but not the leaves , so just because the leaves or berries of a tree are poisonous doesn't mean the wood is.

 

[Jacob]

Try telling the wife that!

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

I get that ie bits are poisonous and bits aren't. My point is simply this......why would you want to take such a stupid risk?

 

[clk230]

Lets face it if say Yew was that poisonous then it wouldn't be used at all with out extra care i.e wearing gloves when handling washing hands before eating/drinking etc . I'm not saying throw all caution to the wind , but a sealed (oiled/waxed) seasoned piece of wood has got to be very low risk .