Exactly; otherwise you will poison yourself, and that would be sad.

Also, I don't know how the body would do with the actual pine needles themselves... I found myself thinking about murder mysteries where someone kills someone by feeding them chopped-up porcupine quills, which then destroy their digestive tract. I guess pine needles are softer than that--but not super soft? So using them as a flavor strikes me as safer than using them as a food in themselves. Although if people around the world have a history of eating them, then it must be safe--provided, as you say, you get edible pines and not an evergreen like yew.