Would viruses cause food to putrefy? Explain.

Question

Would viruses cause food to putrefy? Explain.

Answer 1

no.

viruses insert them selves in the DNA of active cells, and cause the cells to replicate them.

food is already dead, and is not doing replication, and is therefore useless to a virus.

now, the bacteria that's causing the food to putrefy is a very different story.

a virus will like that just fine.

Answer 2

Viruses can only function inside a living cell, so the only foods they could harm are live ones; live shellfish could be killed by some viruses for instance.  But some viruses can lie dormant for a long time outside a live host, so eating food contaminated with a pathogenic virus could make you sick.