Choking deaths on food in the USUS plant-based milk total retail sales
As plant-based milk sales have grown, choking deaths have risen, a correlation of 0.990 that adds oat milk to the long list of health foods that correlate with mortality statistics they cannot possibly influence. The oat milk pours, the esophagus contracts, and the chart makes no distinction between almond, soy, and statistical artifact. The milk is plant-based. The correlation is number-based. Neither is nourishing.
Plant-based milk grew from about 1.2 billion to over 2.6 billion dollars between 2012 and 2021. Choking deaths rose with the aging population. Ten data points of two upward trends, producing a coefficient driven by shared direction rather than shared mechanism. Oat milk is a liquid and therefore essentially impossible to choke on, making this correlation one of the more ironically safe pairings in the dataset.
Ten years of plant-based milk and choking deaths is a correlation between one of the safest possible food formats (a liquid) and one of the most age-dependent death statistics (choking). The milk flows, the population ages, and the chart connects them with the confidence of a coefficient that has never swallowed anything.
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Want to learn more about why correlations like “Choking deaths on food in the US” vs “US plant-based milk total retail sales” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
