The Food and Drug Administration is charged with defining what is and is not a specific food. Right now, for example, it's working through proposed guidelines for "nut milks," such as soy and cashew, which technically don't contain any milk at all.
But sometimes the FDA goes the other way. Currently, it's considering loosening its definition of what constitutes a frozen cherry pie. Interestingly, the agency doesn't have definitions for any other frozen fruit pies.
It's also reported the FDA may also eliminate the definition of another American favorite: French dressing.
Body of Knowledge
An infant's head is roughly one-quarter of its total length, but by age 25, it will, on average, comprise only one-eighth of the person's total body length.
Get Me That, Stat!
Fertility rates in the U.S. continue to fall, according to the Centers for Disease Control. From 2007 to 2017, the total fertility rate fell 12 percent in rural counties, 16 in small and medium metro counties and 18 percent in large metro counties. The mean age of mothers at the time they first give birth rose by 1.3 years in rural counties, 1.5 years in small or medium metro counties and 1.8 years in big metro countries.
Doc Talk
Hemopneumothorax: blood and air in the pleura, a pair of membranes lining the thorax and enveloping lungs. More commonly referred to as a collapsed lung.
Mania of the Week
Typomania: an obsession with printing one's lucubrations. In other words, the use of oversized and ostentatious verbiage combined with a compulsion to write overwroughtly. Hey, don't look here. We are a veritable simulacrum of demureness and abstemiousness.
Number Cruncher
A Rubio's grilled veggie burrito (445 grams) contains 770 calories, 315 from fat. It has 35 grams of total fat, or 54 percent of the recommended total fat intake for a 2,000-calorie daily diet, according to the Calorie Count database.
It also contains 30 milligrams of cholesterol (10 percent); 1,520 milligrams of sodium (63 percent); 83 grams of total carbohydrates (28 percent); 7 grams of fiber (28 percent); 8 grams of sugar; and 22 grams of protein.
Never Say "Diet"
If Thanksgiving dinner seemed to last forever, think about inviting these folks next time. They're all professional speed-eaters. Joey Chestnut holds the turkey-eating world record, having consumed 9.35 pounds of whole turkey in 10 minutes. Juliet Lee ate 13.23 pounds of jellied cranberry sauce in 8 minutes. Crazy Legs Conti chowed down 2.71 pounds of French-cut green beans in 6 minutes, while Eric Booker gobbled 9.5 pounds of peas in 12 minutes. Matt Stonie consumed 20 pounds, 13 ounces of pumpkin pie in 8 minutes. At a dinner like this, don't count on leftovers.
Best Medicine
First guy: "My girlfriend left me because she couldn't handle my OCD."
Second guy: "What happened?"
First guy: "I told her to close the door five times on her way out."
Observation
"The trouble with jogging is that by the time you realize you're not in shape for it, it's too far to walk back." — American humorist Franklin P. Jones (1908-1980)
Medical history
This week in 1954, 32-year-old Ann Hodges of Sylacauga, Alabama, became the first and only recorded instance of a person being struck by a meteorite. The 9-pound fragment from a larger chondrite meteorite fell through the roof of her house, smashed the case of her wooden radio and struck her as she lay resting on a sofa. Hodges suffered serious bruising but no other injuries. The meteorite was donated to the Alabama Museum of Natural History.
Med School
Q: What percentage of American children ages 2 to 5 are officially considered obese?
A: 13.9 percent. The CDC defines obesity as a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile for age, height and weight.
Epitaphs
In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England:
"On the 22nd of June
Jonathan Fiddle
Went out of tune."
To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
View Comments