Considering how many people put their mouths over rubbers each year, I'd say your safe ;-) Regards, Dan www.americanspice.com > -----Original Message----- > From: Tom D Compton [mailto:tdc@juno.com] > Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 4:02 PM > To: chile-heads@globalgarden.com > Subject: [CH] Food Safety Question > > Here is a question for all the experts out there. I usually just lurk > and learn, but this time I need some real help. Every fall I harvest all > my hot peppers and smoke them for a few hours with hickory or mesquite > chips. I finish the drying overnight in a food dehydrator and then grind > the peppers along with garlic powder, cumin, and salt into a wonderful > smoky chile powder. > > I screw a canning jar onto my blender blade assembly and grind the > peppers right in the container. As the volume decreases, I keep adding > dried peppers till all is ground and the jar is full. This year, almost > at the end, when I unscrewed the blade to add a few more peppers, I found > about a one inch chunk of the (rubber?) gasket missing. It must have > been hooked under the blade and is presumably ground up in the pepper > mixture. I now have nearly a pint of chile powder contaminated with > whatever the gasket is made of. This represents this year's entire > harvest, and I hate to throw it out. I'm sure the small piece of rubber > will not noticeably affect the flavor, but I'm concerned about the > safety. Is that gasket going to be toxic, or is it inert? > > I will greatly appreciate your reply. > > Tom