Adults who have tried sushi

As more Americans have tried sushi, more Americans have choked to death on food, a correlation of 0.996 that sounds like a cautionary public health warning and is actually just two upward trends happening to move in the same direction at the same speed. The sushi is not the choking hazard. The aging population is. But the chart does not differentiate between fish and demographics, and at 0.996, it does not need to—the number does all the talking.

Sushi adoption grew steadily as Japanese cuisine became mainstream American food. Choking deaths rose modestly as the over-65 population expanded. Both curves are smooth and upward across seventeen years, producing a correlation that is mathematically inevitable rather than mechanistically meaningful. Sushi, for what it is worth, is not a significant choking risk—the most common choking foods are hot dogs, hard candy, and grapes, none of which correlate as impressively with sushi adoption. The coefficient is a product of shape, not substance.

A correlation of 0.996 between sushi and choking deaths is the kind of number that would terrify a regulator and bore a statistician. The sushi is eaten, the elderly choke (on other things), and the coefficient is a monument to what happens when two smooth curves share a timeline. The fish is fresh. The correlation is stale. The math is immaculate.