Orchard Wood

99ways2die said:

Not wondering at all.............but:

I'll bet you make some killer rubs.

-99

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I really try to limit the diazinon in my rubs, but it gives such a wonderful umami flavor, I can't stay away.:heh:

I get my pecan from a working orchard and have not noticed anything funky.

All the information I have been able to come across will depend on the exact chemical or pesticide being used on the tree. Each pesticide has a label with the requirements for how long it takes the chemicals to breakdown or leach away. There are several factors that also determine how long it takes, like environment, water, sunlight, and temperature. I have also requested some more information from our local agriculture ext. office. if they send me anything I will let you know, but usually heat will destroy it and the drying time to season it will also kill off all chemicals and I haven't found any chemical that says it lasts longer than 6 months.

Most chemicals that are effective will have a ridiculously short half life. They work because the chemicals that make them effective delivery vehicles (of death) evaporate easily and quickly, and that makes for short life.

This is military grade chemicals though YMMV.

Noah,
Great question, but not much of a concern on my end. Fruit trees are usually pruned late in their dormant season. I would say on average 5 months or longer for apple trees and longer than that for peaches, cherry etc. I couldn't really say about citrus woods as I have never raised any citrus.
I believe you (we) are probably at a greater health risk just form inhaling the smoke while checking or stoking our pits, than from any thing that might have been applied to the tree prior to us burning it.

You could always debark the wood if your worried!!! You might want to wash your fruits and vegetables with soap and water also before you eat them, to clean off any pesticide residue. There is so much crap on or in all of our food, you could worry yourself to death about it. Unless you grow it or raise it yourself you don't know whats in it!

I've got some time to look around (well, I've got a lot of time...if i need it) and I started to do some digging online this AM.
The following is a Q&A from a certain site (not sure if linking/etc is allowed).
It doesn't answer our Qs directly and may be off target a bit, but it does touch on some of the subjects at hand.
I'll bold everything I think is related to our topic here and may cut some irrelevant stuff out.

What can I tell people about smoking food with wild cherry wood when
they have been told there is arsenic in wild cherry wood? They want to know
if it is safe. Also, what about the issue of cyanogenic compounds? Is this a concern,
and if so, I assume it is a non-issue if the wood is aged a period of time?

Our response:​

Good Afternoon,

...

First, it is important to note that....Wood Products
only manufacturers gourmet “cooking” wood from forest trees. We do not,
and will not, produce our products from orchard-based woods. Our reason is simple – we do not believe in smoking foods over woods that have been or have the potential to be sprayed or growth enhanced with chemicals .
As you’ve already indicated, trees produce prussic acid, better known as
hydrogen cyanide. We feel that humans can use woods produced in nature when they have been left alone, unburden by the human hand in trying to manage what sometimes is the normal cyclical pattern of nature. In the areas in which we purchase the heartwood for our gourmet wood production facility, the varieties of cherry (prunus pensylvanica L.f.) we commonly deal with are: Northern Pin Cherry, Fire Cherry, Wild Red Cherry, and Pigeon Cherry. Of course, predominately, we bring in Wild Red Cherry. Your portion of the country generally in known for production of
Southern Crab Apple, Narrow-Leaf Crab, Wild Crab, and Eastern Chokecherry. The main difference in these woods is that our forest trees tend to be on the sweeter side versus the sour. For the most part, hydrogen cyanide is found mainly in the leaves and seeds of the cherry tree. Black Cherry bark is also commonly used in herbal cough remedies.
The predominate opinion is that when used in small quantities, the hydrogen cyanide is a mute issue. Now let’s talk about the smoking application of wood. Cyanogenic compounds WOULD remain a factor for our production of cooking wood. This is due to the fact that we do not allow our gourmet woods to deplete their moisture content to a level that other wood product manufacturers may do
(what is commonly referred to as “seasoning of the wood”). For ideal smoking of foods, wood needs to have a moisture level preferably at 20% or higher. This results in the wood smoldering rather than burning at a rapid rate. The resulting smoke from the plant material provides for that wonderful flavor. Because smoking is done at low temperatures for longer periods of time, the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s) found in wood moelcules are not stimulated as they normally would be when cooking, say, a steak over a hot flame. Thus, the health risk associated with PAH’s and smoked foods is not considered an issue.

Our main concerns regarding woods used for cooking and smoking foods is to always ensure a bark-free product. Bark does not hold moisture but rather is designed to rid the tree of wastes by absorbing them and locking them into this area. In fact, this is the reason why bark-on woods burn so much faster than bark-free wood pieces. This portion of the tree is actually responsible for temperature flare-ups, tainted smells, “spotty” appearance of the food’s skin, and increase in the production of ash.
Addtionally, once the temperature is increased during wood-fired
cooking, heterocyclic amines, or HCAs, are created due to the reaction of the amino acides and creatine with the higher cooking temperature.

In a nutshell, a person is at greater risk of cyanide exposure in
treated wood products for home construction than they are when consuming BBQ.
Knowing the source of the wood being used in the cooking application is vital to ensure that the necessary steps have been taken to prevent tree disease and pest infestation spread, as well as to ensure that the wood has not been exposed to any chemical/toxin treatments.

It is our hope, that one day soon, inspection of the wood products used
by restaurants, caterers, bbq competitors, and grocery stores who promote
smoked and natural-wood fired foods, will occur as normally as food
inspections. After all, I think we all can agree that what you cook the
food over is as an important as what food you are cooking!

Thanks again for your interest!

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Still, can't be sure if and how exactly does this translate to pesti/fungicide use in orchards/etc and if the exposure levels are even comparable.

I'll keep digging, so don't mind the garbage spewing outta my mouth.

-99

From some Aussie BBQ board (opinion):

Ladies and Gents,

Found myself a supplier of apple wood which I am very happy about. I agreed to make him some pulled pork and he said I could have as much wood as I like. It's going to be a great relationship! I can not justify spending $25 a bag on hickory chunks flown over from the US!! The cost and the distance it took to get here!! Complete madness. But when I spoke to both my charcoal supplier and the guy and my local barbecue store they both warned me of some serious health risks.

Others may have come across this following argument when speaking to someone who sells wood for smoking, they insist that the pesticides used in orchards are, of course, harmful to health when burnt. Therefore buy their stuff! Whilst this may initially seem to make sense and as I'm sure most of you distinguished brethren have worked out for yourself it's not true...Well, not completely true anyway. As a horticulturalist and a skeptic, the argument makes no sense. The most common pesticides used on orchards are glyphosate, imidicloprid and mancozeb, a herbicide, insecticide and fungicide respectively. Of these the only one that is systemic and therefore MAY still be in the wood, is imidicloprid, a neurotoxin that manipulates the nervous systems of insects. Whilst I would warn people away from drinking Confidor or other imidicloprid products, you are quite simply not going to expose yourself to the levels or imidicloprid that would cause acute or chronic toxicity by burning wood from apple orchards.

I dare say you are likely to have more exposure to imidicloprid from the apple juice you injected into the pork! Or the cabbage in the coleslaw, or the flea treatment for your dog, the neighbour spraying his roses............

So go find yourself a local supplier, cook him a rack of ribs and he'll probably be happy to be done with it!!

Tim

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From the Wikipedia page on "smoking(cooking)":
Look up the full article if interested in details....although they didn't write anything about the wood itself (health-wise).

Cancer risk
"Of various sources of N-nitroso compounds, intake of smoked and salted fish was significantly (RR = 2.58, 95% CI 1.21 − 5.51) and intake of cured meat was non-significantly (RR = 1.84, 95% CI 0.98– 3.47) associated with risk of colorectal cancer."[3]

Source:Risk of colorectal and other gastro-intestinal cancers after exposure to nitrate, nitrite and N-nitroso compounds: a follow-up study, International Journal of Cancer,Volume 80, Issue 6, pages 852–856, 15 March 1999, Read it online

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Not easy trying to find specific info pertaining to use of pesticides/etc in wood and using it to smoke food.
However, as most of you probably know, there's plenty of info regarding potential health implications of consuming smoked (and grilled) food.
I'll bet many are fully aware of the possible risks.
Hmmm - so, to make a long story short - everything in moderation?
Probably.
-99

What you really have to watch out for these days is that dihydrogen oxide!

jasonjax said:

What you really have to watch out for these days is that dihydrogen oxide!

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Nice. I thought CO2 is going to kill us off.

All my apple and cherry is from residential removal. I don't use orchard stuff at any cost. I can't prove there's any harm in using orchard stuff but if I had a choice I'd go with residential fruitwoods or forest hardwoods like oak, maple etc.

Here is the answer I received from the ISU Extension.

The following response was provided by Donald Lewis, an Iowa State University extension entomologist.

Pesticides such as insecticides and fungicides applied to orchards have short residual times, measured in days and weeks, not months and years. Any residues that were on the trunk or branch wood would have long dissipated in the 2+ years the wood is curing as firewood.

Further, insecticides used in a commercial orchard are not systemic; they would not be located in the wood of the trunk, they would be located on the bark. Removal of the bark would eliminate all residues.

And finally, from what I've been told, removing the bark before barbequing or grilling is preferred as bark sometimes imparts an off flavor as it burns. Again, removal of the bark solves the issue.

Data on persistence of pesticides is not easy to find. Sometimes it is on the MSDS, other times you find it by searching online. Below is persistence information for two common Iowa apple orchard pesticides. You can find information for products of concern by requesting a pesticide application record from the commercial orchard and looking up the half life of the products used.

Imidan insecticide (one of the older and more persistent insecticides) has a half-life of 3 to 19 days. See http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/metiram-propoxur/phosmet-ext.html Scroll down to "Environmental Fate."

Assail is a newer, popular broad spectrum insecticide. Though the concentrated insecticide is toxic, the label directions state that fruit can be harvested 7 days after spraying (another indication of how little time the products persist).

Richard

-----Original Message-----


From: Bryan [mailto:bmaunu68@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2011 12:26 PM
To: hortline@iastate.edu
Subject: Ask an Expert Question

Is there any residue from pesticides left on wood harvested from commercial orchards? The harvested wood will be used to smoke and cook food.
Could you send links to any supporting documentation?

Thank you.
Bryan Maunu
Class of 1991

Sent from my iPhone

Honestly, I'd be more worried about following a school bus to work several days a week. Those things put out nasties in the air. BBQ? Not worried in the least.

Speaking of moderation, maybe we need some... on Mr. 99 here.

As my doctor says: EVERYTHING you eat kills you. And frankly, BBQ food is probably high on the list.

You ask for proof, demean those who offer opinion, then post an absure opinion from an unsubstantiated source, yourself.

Pot, meet kettle.

El Lobo said:

All my apple and cherry is from residential removal. I don't use orchard stuff at any cost. I can't prove there's any harm in using orchard stuff but if I had a choice I'd go with residential fruitwoods or forest hardwoods like oak, maple etc.

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Haven't you heard... it's alar that's bad for you.

Errrr.... nevermind!

Note to Twinsfan: the alar scare occurred long before you were born. It cost apple growers millions in lost product, and it turned out to be nonsense.

</rant>

There doesn't seem to be any conclusive study's published. Make your own conclusion and if you have a choice don't. BTW glyphosate is an herbicide not an insecticide.