Sweden says Christmas tree needles safe to eat -- after Belgian warning

Belgium's federal food safety agency (Afsca) issued a public health warning Tuesday against eating pine tree needles after the environmentally-minded city of Ghent posted tips for recycling the conifers into dinner table items.

Ghent had cited what it said were ancient Scandinavian customs of using dried needles to flavour butter.

Sweden's Food Safety Agency said it agreed with their Belgian counterparts that commercially bought Christmas trees "are not considered food because they may have been treated with plant protection products not authorized for edible crops".

But Anneli Widenfalk, toxicologist at the Swedish agency, told AFP in an email that the Swedish custom of collecting and using needles from young saplings is safe -- if in limited quantities.

"This is usually done in May to June, when they are small and tender, and the tree has probably not been treated with chemicals," she said.

They can be used to make butter herbal infusions, syrups, or to flavor alcohol such as schnapps. There are even spruce beers, brewed by the Vikings one thousand years ago, according to Smalandsgran, a family business specializing in the sale of Christmas trees.

"The soldiers at the time of Charles XII knew that these shoots –- rich in vitamin C and minerals –- had a preventive effect on health," the company says on its website, referring to the Swedish king of the early 1700s.