Shortly before this year's IFT Annual Meeting + Food Expo, I read a newspaper article on how doctors, by using genetic science, will be able to predict someday what diseases an individual is susceptible to. I thought, wow, the mass media will be discussing terms such as "gene expression" and "nutrigenomics" in a context that mainstream readers will readily understand. But then to my disappointment (although not necessarily surprise), the remainder of the article focused on how most people may not wantto know what potential diseases awaitthem down the line, especially if there's a good chance that they're going to die from them. And sure enough, the next day, on a popular radio talk show, a barrage of very frightened listeners called in, venting on how they do not wish to know when and how they're going to die, that this information would destroy their current peace of mind, lower their quality of living, and possibly even take some years off their normal life span. Ignorance is bliss was the general consensus, although a medical authority was given 60 seconds on the air to explain the possible benefits that having such genetic knowledge could bring. But by that time, some of the more agitated listeners had probably already thrown themselves out of windows or in front of moving vehicles to escape their predestined fate.
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