Nations who have not yet adopted the metric system

Originally Posted By CrouchingTigger

While we're at it, we need to change the way we measure time!

24 hours a day??? 60 minutes to the hour???

Quick! How many seconds in half a day?

 

Originally Posted By Schmitty Good Vibes

I really think that it will take a couple of hundred years, but the U.S. will go completly metric. So, don't worry Ursula!

As for the 24 hour clock, I've always thought it should and would change, but I'd give it another two hundred years (at least) and we will have a ten hour day devided into 100 minutes devided into 100 seconds. That will be one wierd change, but I think it will happen. Think of it - We'll only work a three hour day!

 

Originally Posted By Schmitty Good Vibes

>>>Quick! How many seconds in half a day?<<<

43,200

Sorry, but I sit with a calculator all day long.

 

Originally Posted By Liberty Belle

>>Metric people, how do you measure things for cooking? Do you have measuring spoons and measuring cups?<<

Yeah, I haven't noticed many differences between the two systems in cooking - I got an American cookbook (the Disney one) and aside from the degrees in the oven (Fahrenheit rather than Celsius) everything seems to be pretty much the same! Cups, teaspoons, etc.

 

Originally Posted By tiki tiki tiki tiki

LB, the teaspoon and tablespoons are the same but the rest is all different.

Cups aren´t used, instead measurements are made in liters for liquids, grams for the rest (flours, sugars, rice, etc.), and kilos for the weight measurements. And of course, degrees are in Celsius.

Which makes it all the more fun if you have to sit down half an hour before you begin a complicated recipe to convert all the measurements!

 

Originally Posted By fkurucz

^^^Uh, grams are a weight measurement.

 

Originally Posted By fkurucz

<<Which makes it all the more fun if you have to sit down half an hour before you begin a complicated recipe to convert all the measurements!>>

I'll admit this couod be tricky. How do you convert a cup of flour (a volume measurement) or sugar to grams (a weight measurement)?

I suppose that back in the good ol' days people didn't have accurate scales in their kitchens, so it was just easier to measure dry ingredients by volume as opposed to weight.

 

Originally Posted By CrouchingTigger

I don't have a scale in the kitchen and it drives me nuts when a recipe calls out for something by weight, unless I can buy it by that (exact) weight in a package.

 

Originally Posted By tiki tiki tiki tiki

<<^^Uh, grams are a weight measurement.>>

Sorry about that, I was picturing my measuring utensils as I wrote that.

<<How do you convert a cup of flour (a volume measurement) or sugar to grams (a weight measurement)?>>

Well apart from grabbing your cup of flour or sugar and then putting it on a scale, I have no idea. But I do have a very handy big measuring glass for both grams and liters which has different types of foods and ingredients and their measurements all the way around it. I don´t know what I would do without it. Very handy.

 

Originally Posted By Ursula

I do know a mile, I drive in Los Angeles. Miles are converted to minutes, silly! Thirty miles are about twenty minutes, unless you are on the 10, then multiply by .75 and add that to the twenty minutes. You'll be there in no time!

Don't even get me started on time! I work in post, so we are on military. But the program we use for scheduling can't be run in military, so I have to convert EVERYTHING every time I use it.

Plus, we don't use the usual 15-minute increments. We are union and we use 1/6th of an hour.

So, .6 is really 36 minutes. For example, I had a session wrap last night at 19.8 (that's 7:48pm to everyone else).

So, yes, I am smart enough to use the metric system but I shall refuse to do so on the grounds that it is all about me.

 

Originally Posted By Autopia Deb

>>>So, yes, I am smart enough to use the metric system but I shall refuse to do so on the grounds that it is all about me.<<<

I want to be YOU when I grow up! (never mind that I'm older than you, lol)

 

Originally Posted By Ursula

I want to be me when I grow up, too! It's so glamourous!

 

Originally Posted By DVC_dad

<<<I don't think we are lazy. I think we are stubborn and arrogant. Heck, I'm stubborn and I'm rather smart at things.>>>



Well ok...nah...I'm pretty much lazy.

 

Originally Posted By DVC_dad

<<<but it does make us look like ignoramuses when we are proud to admit that we don't have a clue as to what meters>>>


I look like an ignoramuse (whatever THAT is) and I don't care.

 

Originally Posted By DVC_dad

<<<So, yes, I am smart enough to use the metric system but I shall refuse to do so on the grounds that it is all about me.>>>

OH yeah, I'm down for that sugar!

 

Originally Posted By Liberty Belle

>>Cups aren´t used, instead measurements are made in liters for liquids, grams for the rest (flours, sugars, rice, etc.), and kilos for the weight measurements. And of course, degrees are in Celsius.<<

I'm confused, do you mean cups aren't used in the metric system? We are talking about "3/4 cup of flour" aren't we? My recipes all use cups ... or maybe you mean cups aren't used in the non-metric system, in which case ignore me.

 

Originally Posted By tiki tiki tiki tiki

^^No, I´m talkin´ metric. Instead of 3/4 cup of flour it would be like 100 grams, more or less.

 

Originally Posted By Liberty Belle

*shrugs* My recipes all call for cups. If it's butter or something it will say "100 grams", but flour and sugar and everything that's easily measured uses cups. I checked with mum (who cooks a lot more than I do!) and she agreed, so it might vary from country to country? Where do you live?

 

Originally Posted By tiki tiki tiki tiki

"Mum?" Oh, you´re not in the U.S. are you?! Where exactly? I´m in southern Spain. Cooking has been one of my passions for many years, that´s why I THINK I have all this measurement/conversion mumbo jumbo down. But moms/mums always know best! Looks like cups are used where you´re at.

 

Originally Posted By Autopia Deb

tiki, Liberty Belle is one of our Aussie ladies here on LP.