Final answer:
It is true that viruses cannot reproduce in food; they require a host organism's cells to replicate. Viruses are acellular and obligate intracellular parasites that hijack the host's cellular machinery for their replication.
Step-by-step explanation:
Viruses are acellular microorganisms, meaning they are not composed of cells and cannot reproduce on their own. This statement is true: viruses cannot reproduce in food; they only use food as a means to get inside the human body. Once inside a host organism, viruses operate as obligate intracellular parasites, co-opting the host's cellular mechanisms to multiply.
Viruses do contain genetic material, which can be either DNA or RNA, making DNA viruses capable of using the host cell's machinery to produce new copies of their genomes. The replication of a virus occurs only when it infects a host cell; they use the cell's ATP, ribosomes, and other parts for the production of more viral particles. Furthermore, many viruses utilize receptor-mediated endocytosis to enter host cells, which may protect them from white blood cell recognition.