Changing What We Eat with the Fingers

Abstract

Some cuisines are only eaten with fingers, especially cuisines of the African descent. Fingers can also be a more effective and elegant "utensil" for eating particular foods. Eating with our fingers actually gives us a grander pleasure for the food. Not only do we taste it, but we feel its texture and interact with the food in a special way. However, the fingers about to change the food we eat are not human fingers. They are known as Zinc Fingers, naturally occurring proteins that can be used in a cell nucleus like the way an editor uses ‘track changes' in word processing. Various scientists have described zinc fingers as “molecular scissors”. This article is a popular science writing attempting to address the implications of the advances in Zinc Finger Nuclease technology on the food we eat to the understanding of the non-scientist.