Per capita mozzarella consumption

As Americans have consumed more mozzarella per capita, more of them have choked to death on food, achieving a correlation of 0.995 that sounds like a case for the FDA and is actually just a case for better statistics education. The mozzarella stretches, the esophagus does not, and the chart connects them with the confidence of seventeen data points that have never heard of a confounding variable. To be clear: the mozzarella is not the problem. But the number is very persuasive.

Mozzarella consumption grew steadily from about 9 to over 12 pounds per capita as pizza, caprese, and cheese-based snacking expanded. Choking deaths rose modestly with the aging population. Both are smooth upward curves, and the correlation is their mathematical handshake: two lines going up at the same steady rate over the same period. Mozzarella is not a significant choking hazard—melted cheese can be stringy, but the choking death statistics are dominated by hard candy, hot dogs, and grapes among children, and meat and bread among the elderly.

A correlation of 0.995 between mozzarella and choking deaths is a number that proves exactly one thing: two upward trends over the same period will produce an impressive coefficient regardless of causation. The cheese is stretchy, the conclusion is stretchy, and the math is doing all the heavy lifting. The pizza is served. The correlation is overcooked.