Healing Modality (noun phrase).—Any method of dealing with a disease or medical condition that does not actually work, as opposed to treatment or cure.

Dear Dr. Boli: My mom keeps telling me to eat my vegetables. But vegetables are yucky, especially after my mom has left them boiling on the stove for an hour and a half while she gets lost in YouTube and forgets everything she ever knew. Why should I eat them anyway? —Sincerely, Conor, Age 36.

Dear Sir: Dr. Boli was just taking a walk through a lovely stream valley where the Japanese knotweed is quickly strangling every other form of life in the landscape. His friends in the South report that whole counties have disappeared under a blanket of kudzu. Entire lakes are invisible under a gorgeous but suffocating carpet of purple loosestrife.

With these observations fresh in his mind, Dr. Boli believes he can give a reasonable answer to your question. You should eat your vegetables to prevent them from eating you.

Your arithmetic lesson for today: 10 ÷ 3 = 0.

What kind of arithmetic is this? It is marketing math, a separate discipline from the mathematics you were supposed to have learned in grade school while you were reading comic books under your desk.

Ten calories per container. About three servings per container. Zero calories per serving. 10 ÷ 3 = 0.

How can this be? It can be because government labeling standards assign a very specific technical meaning to “zero.” In the field of food labeling, “zero” is defined as “not zero.”

This sort of mathematics is very useful. It would not have got us to the moon—we must admit that. If NASA had used calculations like these, the Apollo 11 astronauts would still be on their way to the moon today, confidently expecting to land any day now. But it is useful in fooling the consumer into thinking that something is what it is not, or vice versa, and that is the essence of marketing. Government labeling standards mandate the use of marketing math because the purpose of regulatory agencies is to protect manufacturers from consumers, who might otherwise demand food that is what it is and is not what it is not. We pay our taxes to relieve large manufacturing concerns of that embarrassment.

Tricycles.—Simple mathematics proves that it takes 50% more effort to balance on a tricycle than on a bicycle.

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Today is World Book Day. You could celebrate with a book.

Dear Dr. Boli: I keep hearing about how trans fats are bad for you, which sounds very unenlightened. But I confess that I don’t understand the issue. I can’t even figure out how fats have gender in the first place. What’s going on? —Sincerely, A Manufacturer of Margarine Who Had to Reformulate a While Ago.

Dear Sir or Madam: The “trans” in “trans fats” is short for transubstantiated fats. These are fats in which the healthful energy-producing substance of the food has been removed and replaced with harmful artery-clogging fatty acids, though the greasy accidents of the food remain. The demonic powers have been working on duplicating transubstantiation for the better part of two millennia now, but so far this is the best they have come up with, and government regulation appears to have stymied them on this front.

Dear Dr. Boli: What’s the difference between “four-wheel drive” and “all-wheel drive”? I counted all the wheels on my car, and I only came up with four. —Sincerely, Elon Musk.

Dear Sir: You left one wheel out of your reckoning. With four-wheel drive, the four external wheels are powered and move the vehicle. With all-wheel drive, the same is true, but in the event of a loss of traction, the steering wheel will get out and push.

Feel the freeze! Cools your mouth as you eat!

Dr. Boli imagines marketers sitting at a conference table piled high with martinis, trying to come up with a suitable slogan for this new advance in breakfast technology:

“The breakfast of masochists!”

No, not quite what we want.

“More than 400% of your US RDA of blue!”

The FDA would get on our backs.

“A convenience store in your bowl!”

Probably not what our target demographic is looking for.

At the end of the meeting, all they could agree on was that, in the box art, the milk in the bowl should look as much as possible like mucus.

But alas! it was not enough. We discovered this rare delight only because it was heaped in stacks along the sidewalk in front of an emporium in the Strip District in Pittsburgh that specializes in bent cans and past-their-prime packaged foods.

All the science that went into creating a breakfast cereal that has the same painful effects on the human palate as a frozen convenience-store froot drink was for naught, and the man on the next corner with a thrift-store karaoke machine begging quarters from passers-by for singing the greatest hits of John Denver may well have been one of the scientists responsible.

Parents, don’t let your children grow up to be breakfast-cereal chemists.

Make a detailed record of everything you eat for one week. Then show it to your doctors. The looks on their faces will be priceless.

Vegetables are important in every meal. If you are invited to a fancy dinner and find the menu deficient in vegetables, you can skip the appetizer and eat the floral centerpiece.

If your doctor says you are not getting enough minerals in your diet, try eating Venezuela, which Wikipedia says is very rich in minerals.

Before you eat any packaged snack food, read the list of ingredients from beginning to end. By the time you have finished, you will probably be too depressed to eat the contents of the package. Success!

Books about a fiber-rich diet are themselves rich in fiber.