With red meat prices up nearly 10% over the past year, vegetable alternatives look more attractive, at least when it comes to greens in your wallet. They've only risen 3%.

The personal finance company WalletHub recently published its list of the 20 top cities for vegans and vegetarians, based on factors like the share of local restaurants that offer meatless options, the cost of groceries, and the number of salad shops per capita.

The top 20 cities were Portland, Oregon; Los Angeles; Austin, Texas; San Francisco; Oakland, California; Seattle; Orlando, Florida; San Diego; Madison, Wisconsin; Tampa, Florida; Cincinnati; Miami; Atlanta; Chicago; New York City; Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky; Pittsburgh; Birmingham, Alabama; Washington, D.C.; and Phoenix.

Best Versus Wurst

Scottsdale, Arizona, had the highest share of restaurants serving vegetarian options, which is 12.4 times higher than in Laredo, Texas, the city with the lowest.

Scottsdale also had the highest share of restaurants serving vegan options, which is 59.7 times higher than in North Las Vegas, Nevada, the city with the lowest.

San Francisco had the most community-supported agriculture programs (per square root of population), 26.8 times more than Houston, the city with the fewest.

Atlanta had the most salad shops (per square root of population), 17.15 times more than Santa Ana, California, the city with the fewest.

Body of Knowledge

The human sense of touch requires up to 10 billion times more energy to feel an object than sight requires to see one. Sounds like a lot, but one-thousandth of an ounce of pressure on a single hair on an arm or leg is enough to detect it.

Mark Your Calendar

November is awareness month for diabetes, lung, stomach and pancreatic cancers, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, pulmonary hypertension and bladder health. And amid all of that is "Have a Bad Day" Day, celebrated on Nov. 19. It's a moment to forego robotic pleasantries and acknowledge some days are just worse than others.

Stories for the Waiting Room

From ancient Greece to the 17th century, ear cautery was a popular treatment for deafness, chronic ear infections and "blocked ears." The procedure typically involved applying a hot iron or heated wire directly behind the ear, or sometimes in the outer ear canal. In some cases, they first made small incisions to "open a path."

Then they held a heated implement in place for several seconds, sometimes repeating the process on both ears.

The idea was that deafness and other auditory problems were caused by blockages or bad humors trapped inside the skull. They believed burning released pressure or expelled the imbalance through pain and heat.

That last part was true. Patients experienced severe burns, scarring, worsening deafness and infections that could spread to the brain. Many screamed or fainted during treatment, which almost never led to improvement of hearing.

Doc Talk

Parasomnia: A broad category of sleep disorders that involve abnormal behaviors, movements, emotions and perceptions during various stages of sleep. Common examples include somnambulism (sleepwalking), sleep terrors and confusional arousals.

Phobia of the Week

Deipnophobia: Fear of dining, public eating or dinner conversations

Best Medicine

A man at a funeral asked the widow if he could say a word.

"Of course," the widow said.

The man said, "Plethora."

The widow said, "Thanks, that means a lot."

Observation

"When you start eating food without labels, you no longer need to count the calories." — Health and wellness advocate and personal trainer Amanda Kraft

Medical history

This week in 1955, American investigators Carlton Schwerdt and Frederick L. Schaffer crystallized the poliovirus. This was the first animal virus to be obtained in crystalline form. (The first plant virus, tobacco mosaic virus, had been crystallized in 1935 by Wendell M. Stanley.)

Each virus crystal contains many thousands of virus particles. Virus preparations pure enough to crystallize usually provide the best material for chemical study. Crystals allowed scientists to split the poliovirus into infectious and non-infectious parts, helping further understanding of the pathogen.

Ig Nobel Apprised

The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate achievements that make people laugh, then think. A look at real science that's hard to take seriously and even harder to ignore.

In 1999, the Ig Nobel Prize in chemistry went to Takeshi Makino, president of The Safety Detective Agency in Osaka, Japan, for his involvement with S-Check, an infidelity detection spray that wives can apply to their husbands' underwear.

Self-Exam

Q: What is the least sensitive part of the human body to touch and spatial acuity?

A) Heel of foot

B) Back of hand

C) Forearm

D) Calf

E) Back

A: Any of these answers would be correct. They all have fewer nerve endings and thicker skin and padding. Conversely, the most sensitive regions of the body are the fingertips, lips, tongue and mouth, and genital area.

Curtains Call

Jerome Irving Rodale (1898-1971) was an author, playwright, publisher and pioneer in modern organic farming. In 1971, at the age of 72, he appeared on "The Dick Cavett Show," where he joked at one point during the interview that he was in "such great health that I fell down a long flight of stairs yesterday and I laughed all the way."

Rodale was sitting beside another of Cavett's guests, newspaper columnist Pete Hamill, when he suffered a fatal heart attack. The show was never broadcast.

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.

Photo credit: Nicole Almendrada at Unsplash