Math Question for Food Geeks

[Wilfrid]

I wondered why I'd been thirsty for the last six years. Now I know. And yet American pints are more expensive - or is that a different thread?

[g.johnson]

Having done a quick google on all this, I find that it’s even more confused than I thought. A US dry pint is 550cc but a liquid pint is 473cc. You guys really need to turn metric in a hurry.

[g.johnson]

I wondered why I'd been thirsty for the last six years.

You've only been thirsty for six years.

(First Johnsonian use of emoticon.)

[Wilfrid]

I'm flattered. And I'm thirsty now (patter of footsteps and sound of slamming door.)

[Orik]

Okay. Just to be clear, a gram can be a weight measure or a volume measure, right? But in this context it's a weight measure?

In that case I think you'll be looking at a volume ratio of about 1 to 8.45, as milk fat is approximately .96gr/cl while that of skim milk is around 1.036 gr/cl. Temperature also plays a role, so you may want to stick with weight ratios...

Edit: typo - 7.45 instead of 8.45

[cakewalk]

I wondered why I'd been thirsty for the last six years.

You've been thirty for the last six years? How did you manage that? (Sorry, I'm hard of hearing.)

[kitwilliams]

I love this thread. Entertaining as well as educational!

[Stone]

Okay. Just to be clear, a gram can be a weight measure or a volume measure, right? But in this context it's a weight measure?

I think the superiority of the metric system can be seen as follows (I'm sure almost all of us know this. But I'm testing myself):

A random fraction of the Earth's diameter is a meter (unit of distance). A centemeter is 1/100th of a meter.

A cubic centimeter is equal to the volume of one milliliter. 1,000 millileters, of course, is a liter (unit of volume).

1 millileter of water weighs one gram. One liter of water, therefore, weighs 1 kilogram (unit of weight).

It all fits so nicely.

English standard -- not so much.

A foot is about yeah long.

1/12th of a foot is an inch.

A cubic inch is . . . nothing, so far as I know.

An ounce is either a unit of volume or weight.

That's where I get lost.

[Fat Guy]

Communist.

[Stone]

Don't get me started about water flouridation.

[Suzanne F]

Flouridated water only works if you're making bread.

Lord, how I wish the U.S. of A. had gone metric!!! Only a simple decimal system to worry about, instead of hexadecimal; liquid volume measures related clearly to measures of weight; no having to use inaccurate volume measures of dry goods; and no redundant titles like "ounce" (avoirdupois or fluid?). The problem is not in the day-to-day USE of the system; it's in learning the conversions until one knows them well enough to feel comfortable working only in the "new" system. And that's where Americans are so stubborn and lazy.

But for real fun, try converting recipes that use measures of volume to decimal measures of avoirdupois pounds -- e.g., 1 tablespoon of dried oregano = .00n pounds -- so that recipes can be standardized for electronic scales that measure in thousandths of a pound. (Doesn't everyone know that 1 ounce = .063 #?)