A friend comes to visit.  Your friend is an avid gardener.  He brings with
him a huge jar of paprika made from peppers he grew himself.  He offers you
some.  You get out a ziplock bag.  He pours some in.  He doesn't remember how
hot it is, so he licks a finger, sticks the finger into your bag, then tastes
his finger.  He pronounces the paprika "medium hot".

I'm torn.  I'm a hygiene fanatic, and the idea of having even a trace of
someone's saliva in the paprika grosses me out.  But I also see homegrown
paprika as a rare and special item, so some sins would be forgivable.
But saliva in it?  Yuck.  I'm inclined to throw it out, precious though it
could have been.

One more wrinkle: This person came down with stomach flu about 4 days later.

Would *you* eat it?

5 responses total.

Can you put it in things that are well-cooked after seasoning?

Freeze it for a few days - I doubt human flu virus would survive.  Then cook
with it.  In fact keep it frozen and it will probably stay fresh longer.

We recently had a similar quandry over a batch of "gifted" 
brownies.  They were pitched, as I would pitch the paprika.
Not because there is a strong probability of getting sick
from eating the contaminated food but because I would have
felt uncomfortable feeding it to myself and my family.

I sure things like this happen all the time and I simply don't
know about it.  Knowing about it makes a difference though.

Well, if you're going to eat _something_ with saliva in it, it may as well
be paprika.  I imagine the heat and dryness would make pretty quick work of
whatever nasties got into it.  Spicing food is a way to preserve it, after
all.

Mighty hard to re-cook cooked brownies to kill germs, but most spices
can be used in foods that get cooked long enough to be sure that the
germs are dead.  As mary says, 'feels too icky' is enough reason to
throw it away.

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