Used a couple of US recipes recently and most of the ingredients are in cups, or spoons, not by weight. This is a nightmare to convert. Do Americans not own scales or something? What’s the reason for measuring everything by volume?

  • IMALlama@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    This isn’t about imperial vs metric, it’s about measuring by mass vs volume. A good example here is flour. Weighing out 30 grams (or about 1 ounce) of flour will always result in the same amount. On the other hand, you can densely pack flour into a 1/4 cup measuring cup, you can gingerly spoon it in little by little, or you can scoop and level. When you do this you’ll get three different amounts of flour, even though they all fill that 1/4 cup. Good luck consistently measuring from scoop to scoop even if you use the same method for each scoop.

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      Jokes on you. When we measure flour on the moon, it’s the same as on earth. You just don’t understand our advance measurement technique with your primitive weighing.

      • okamiueru@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Joke aside, scales on earth measure force and show mass on the assumption of the gravitational pull on earth. On a moon colony, you’d use measuring scales with a different value for the gravitational pull, and get the same values for mass as on earth.

        Edit: Also, if anyone finds this stuff interesting to think about. You can measure mass without any force of gravity, but having the measuring device accelerate (e.g. shake) the stuff you want to measure. From “F=ma”, knowing F and a, you get m.

    • SendMePhotos@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Something something elevation and atmospheric pressure resulting in a proper measurement across altitude… Or something.