Imperial Measurement Conversions Frustration

[Crimson Wife]

What is it about this topic that my 14 y.o. just cannot seem to retain the information? We have gone over this a zillion times by now! :banghead:

 

Even after I gave her a reminder with the mnemonic "a pint's a pound the whole world 'round", she couldn't tell me how many cups 16 oz. was. Seriously? :glare:

[Matryoshka]

I didn't bother belaboring this with my kids.  When do you need this info?  When making a recipe (my measuring cup has the conversions on the side, and there's no time pressure to remember it instantly), or when shopping for milk.  Most people who can't do conversions from memory can still tell a gallon from a half-gallon from a quart or pint in the store.  At any rate, it's really not important which is which, they just pick the one that's the size they need.  And the amount is printed on the container.

 

As an adult, I can't think of a time I have ever needed that information in a real-life situation where it was important to have it instantly memorized (I do know most of them, but the number of times I've had to look up how many fl. oz. in Tablespoon is legendary...).  

 

 

[Laura Corin]

What is it about this topic that my 14 y.o. just cannot seem to retain the information? We have gone over this a zillion times by now! :banghead:

 

Even after I gave her a reminder with the mnemonic "a pint's a pound the whole world 'round", she couldn't tell me how many cups 16 oz. was. Seriously? :glare:

I can't agree with your mnemonic. American pints are smaller than UK pints, but pounds are the same in the two countries. Edited May 20, 2017 by Laura Corin

[Garga]

I can't keep this stuff in my head either. There's some sort of block there. My youngest son is learning all these conversions for his CLE math, and honestly, if he doesn't know them, I let it go. I don't worry about whether or not he's got them memorized.

 

Can anyone think of when these conversions are important to have memorized? I've worried I'm doing my kids a disservice by not having them memorize these things, but I can't think of a time when it's important to have them memorized? My son's CLE goes on and on about memorizing feet in a mile and converting liters to milliliters and so forth...but is it important?

[Crimson Wife]

She was baking and using a recipe that for whatever bizarre reason listed ingredient amounts in ounces instead of cups. She asked me how many cups were 16 oz. of flour and when I gave her the mnemonic claimed that she didn't know how many cups were in a pint. :glare:

Edited May 20, 2017 by Crimson Wife

[OneStepAtATime]

I have never been able to work through this without a conversion chart.  It may seem easy to you but I can tell you from personal experience it is a nightmare level of difficulty for others.  I would let your child use a conversion chart when it is necessary to shift between the two.  

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Can you explain the mnemonic? Never heard it before and don't see how it helps?

[Crimson Wife]

I don't expect her to memorize bizarre things like the number of yards in a mile or whatever but basic things like ounces to pounds, cups to pints/quarts/gallons, etc. I do think she should be able to remember by heart.

[Crimson Wife]

Can you explain the mnemonic? Never heard it before and don't see how it helps?

 

16 oz = 1 lb = 1 pint

[Laura Corin]

She was baking and using a recipe that for whatever bizarre reason listed ingredient amounts in ounces instead of cups. She asked me how many cups were 16 oz. of flour and when I gave her the mnemonic claimed that she didn't know how many cups were in a pint. :glare:

British recipe? We don't use cups.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Can you explain the mnemonic? Never heard it before and don't see how it helps?

Ohhhhhh, now I get it! A pint is 2 cups and a pound is 16oz...

 

I consider myself a compétant adult and never got the standard system, even as an American in the US for my first 21 years. Oh well...

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

16 oz = 1 lb = 1 pint

I finally got it. Lol

[OneStepAtATime]

I don't expect her to memorize bizarre things like the number of yards in a mile or whatever but basic things like ounces to pounds, cups to pints/quarts/gallons, etc. I do think she should be able to remember by heart.

I never have.  I have to look.  I forget every time.  It really frustrated me and upset me no end that my dad would get upset with me for this but I honestly could not help that the info didn't stick.  Again, it may seem easy  to you because your brain can hold onto and process the info.  Not everyone can.  I know this gets frustrating.  I sympathize.  But having been at the receiving end of a parent for whom measurement was easy and could not remotely grasp how hard it was for me, I ask that you please accept that this may not be easy at all for your child.  If this is truly important to you than maybe she could do some very systematic lessons that include a lot of review.  Just tossing a pneumonic at her probably won't help much.  Honestly, when I read it I had no idea what you were talking about.

[justasque]

I have a magnet on my fridge with all of the cooking-relevant conversions on it.  AND I have a little booklet with my cookbooks that has everything you need in order to convert British recipes to American kitchens.  

 

As to the math side of things, I don't do much in the way of conversion besides inches/feet until my students know how to multiply fractions and cancel.  Then, and only then, we do extensive work with conversions the scientific way:  multiplying by a fraction that is equal to one - like 12in/1ft or 16oz/1lb or 1pt/16oz - and cancelling the units to be sure the fraction was the right way up.

2 pts x (16oz / 1 pt) => cancel the pts and you get 32 oz
 

This sets them up very well for high school science classes, and works for everyday conversions too.

[Kuovonne]

I don't understand how the mnemonic applies to flour. A pint is a unit of volume. A pound is a unit of weight. Ounces can be units of weight or of volume, depending on context. A pint of water weighs about a pound, but that conversion doesn't apply to substances with different densities.

 

DD was in the grocery store trying to buy marshmallows and was converting ounces (weight) into cups (volume) and getting all sorts of confused. I had to point out that you can only convert fluid ounces to cups, not ounces that indicate weight.

[winterbaby]

I deal very easily with all this when cooking without need for a chart, and the "pint's a pound" thing threw me. Partly for the reasons Kuovonne gave but partly because it's just really indirect. I mostly learned by doing - looking it up, or more frequently just using measuring tools that showed both, until the need to look up, or even think very hard, gradually dropped away. I accurately convert and resize recipes in my head as I go. But I've been cooking from scratch every day for twenty years. I wouldn't have been able to do it at the age of 14, inexperienced and going off of just having learned it academically.

[Garga]

A pint's a pound the whole world 'round. 

 

A pint is 2 cups.  What does that have to do with a pound?  A pound is a weight.  Two cups is a volume.  I don't understand the mnemonic At All.  How is the pint being a pound telling me that 16 oz is 2 cups?  The mnemonic never even mentions ounces or cups. 

 

Ahhhh!  This whole thread is confusing to me. 

 

[Piper]

As an Aussie ex-pat, trying to teach my kids the US Standard measurements drives me crazy!!! The poor children have to listen to me rant about how much easier it would be if everyone would just switch to metric already, every time they ask me a question like "how many fluid ounces in a gallon?" or whatever.  Metric is sooooooooo much simpler!!!!

/rant off/

And that's not really helpful to anyone, is it...   :leaving:  Poor kids!!

 

I expect the kids to try to memorize the relationships, but I'm not sweating it if they don't. There are so many ways to deal with not knowing these off the top of your head - charts on the fridge, google on the phone, and what-have-you.

[nixpix5]

As an Aussie ex-pat, trying to teach my kids the US Standard measurements drives me crazy!!! The poor children have to listen to me rant about how much easier it would be if everyone would just switch to metric already, every time they ask me a question like "how many fluid ounces in a gallon?" or whatever. Metric is sooooooooo much simpler!!!!

/rant off/

And that's not really helpful to anyone, is it... :leaving: Poor kids!!

 

I expect the kids to try to memorize the relationships, but I'm not sweating it if they don't. There are so many ways to deal with not knowing these off the top of your head - charts on the fridge, google on the phone, and what-have-you.

Yes! As an American it drives me bonkers that we cannot just switch to the metric system which actually makes sense and is easy to manipulate. We use it in science so why not just switch over. I don't remember many of them. I have a nifty silver plated conversion chart magnetized to my refrigerator. :)

[Arcadia]

I use a chart but mostly guesstimate my way when baking and cooking. I have used mainly SI units for work and daily life. I allow my kids to skip questions for yards and miles if it appears on standardized tests, after all they can still hit the 99th percentile skipping those questions. It is not worth the amount of effort my DS11 had to expend on it, his public school teachers also allowed him to skip imperial units and just ace SI units.

 

E.g of a convenient conversion chart https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/hlbc/files/healthyeating/pdf/imperial-metric-conversions.pdf

[fairfarmhand]

Tape the chart to the inside of your cupboard.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Guest]

According to The Food Lab author you shouldn't bake with measuring cups etc anyway. We're supposed to use a food scale these days and measure in grams. ;)

 

I am not gifted at all when it comes to memorizing measurements with baking. I'm just grateful I live in the age of iPhones!

[Matryoshka]

According to The Food Lab author you shouldn't bake with measuring cups etc anyway. We're supposed to use a food scale these days and measure in grams. ;)

 

I am not gifted at all when it comes to memorizing measurements with baking. I'm just grateful I live in the age of iPhones!

 

Since a bunch of my recipes are in German, I have a gram scale.  That's how the rest of the world does it.

 

I also have a cool measuring cone that measures in volume but has the gram equivalents for different common ingredients around the inside.  To completely refute the idea that volume measurement has any equivalency whatsoever with weight.  Which is why pint = pound is completely nonsensical to me.

 

We should switch to metric already!!!

Edited May 21, 2017 by Matryoshka

[Laura Corin]

Since a bunch of my recipes are in German, I have a gram scale. That's how the rest of the world does it.

 

Which is why pint = pound is completely nonsensical to me.

!!!

Does pint equals pound work for water? Like litre of water equals kilogramme?

[Renai]

 

 

Can anyone think of when these conversions are important to have memorized?

My daughter is in a baking program (DE), and I was surprised to find that most of the recipes she does named ounces, not cups. Otherwise, if I don't remember something offhand, I look in the back of my blue cookbook or Google it.

[Renai]

She was baking and using a recipe that for whatever bizarre reason listed ingredient amounts in ounces instead of cups. She asked me how many cups were 16 oz. of flour and when I gave her the mnemonic claimed that she didn't know how many cups were in a pint. :glare:

I just remember that 8oz. is a cup - it's usually printed on the measuring cup that way (at least glass and metal cups I've seen), instead of using the pint unit. I didn't make the pint connection until reading this thread, lol, and then was like, "oh, yeah."

Edited May 21, 2017 by Renai

[EKS]

This is what google (or the first few pages of the Joy of Cooking) is for.

[medawyn]

This is what google (or the first few pages of the Joy of Cooking) is for.

Or Alexa! I don't even have to wash my hands to get my answer.

[EKS]

Or Alexa! I don't even have to wash my hands to get my answer.

 

Same here!  Though for us it's the Google lady.

[regentrude]

16 oz = 1 lb = 1 pint

 

But this is not generally true! The pint is a volume measure, the pound is a measure of weight. They are equal only when you talk about water (or any other substance that also has a density of 1kg/l.)

A pint of flour does not weigh a pound.

 

Also, it is only true for fluid ounzes, when the ounze is used as a volume measure.

 

In a recipe that gives flour in oz, I would not automatically assume that they mean the fluid oz. They might the weight oz, which would equal roughly 28 grams and would require a kitchen scale for measurement.

Edited May 21, 2017 by regentrude

[Ausmumof3]

Well you need to switch to metric and it's all easy...

 

😂

[kiana]

That is not a good mnemonic for anything other than liquids that are pretty close to water. 16 oz of flour is closer to 3.5-4 cups depending on how you measure it because flour is so much less dense than water. 

 

It is becoming more and more common to measure ingredients in weight rather than by volume, especially for things like flour and confectioners sugar where they can compact very easily, because it is much easier to ensure uniformity in the final product. A kitchen scale would be a good investment for anyone who plans on doing a fair amount of baking. 

[vonfirmath]

I can't keep this stuff in my head either. There's some sort of block there. My youngest son is learning all these conversions for his CLE math, and honestly, if he doesn't know them, I let it go. I don't worry about whether or not he's got them memorized.

 

Can anyone think of when these conversions are important to have memorized? I've worried I'm doing my kids a disservice by not having them memorize these things, but I can't think of a time when it's important to have them memorized? My son's CLE goes on and on about memorizing feet in a mile and converting liters to milliliters and so forth...but is it important?

 

I thinki doing the conversions is useful because it is early practice on how conversion works. Memorizing them? Not so much. My son's teacher this year wrote the conversions on the top of the test. She was testing on the conversion process, not memorizing them.

[LuvToRead]

She was baking and using a recipe that for whatever bizarre reason listed ingredient amounts in ounces instead of cups. She asked me how many cups were 16 oz. of flour and when I gave her the mnemonic claimed that she didn't know how many cups were in a pint. :glare:

 

Agreeing with the others.  2 cups of flour does not weigh 16 oz.  I don't find it at all bizarre a recipe would be in ounces and not cups.  I prefer to weigh ingredients, it is much more accurate.  Assuming 16 oz meant 2 cups of flour would likely ruin the recipe.

[Crimson Wife]

 In a recipe that gives flour in oz, I would not automatically assume that they mean the fluid oz. They might the weight oz, which would equal roughly 28 grams and would require a kitchen scale for measurement.

 

I'm not going to be dragging out our kitchen scale when baking (way too much hassle) so if 16 oz. of flour =/= 2 cups, that just means I won't be baking from recipes that list ounces rather than cups.

 

[Crimson Wife]

Agreeing with the others.  2 cups of flour does not weigh 16 oz.  I don't find it at all bizarre a recipe would be in ounces and not cups.  I prefer to weigh ingredients, it is much more accurate.  Assuming 16 oz meant 2 cups of flour would likely ruin the recipe.

 

Yes, it is bizarre. I probably own 3-4 dozen cookbooks and have at various times held subscriptions to 5 different cooking magazines, and NONE of them list bulk ingredients like flour in ounces rather than cups. The only time ounces are listed is if it's something along the lines of adding a whole can/package of an ingredient (so the chef knows what size package to purchase).

[Laura Corin]

I'm not going to be dragging out our kitchen scale when baking (way too much hassle) so if 16 oz. of flour =/= 2 cups, that just means I won't be baking from recipes that list ounces rather than cups.

 

 

I use my scale daily for making bread.  It's about six inches by six inches by one inch - electronic.  It doesn't seem like a lot of hassle to take out.  FWIW, many Brits don't even possess cup measures.

[Guest]

I use my scale daily for making bread.  It's about six inches by six inches by one inch - electronic.  It doesn't seem like a lot of hassle to take out.  FWIW, many Brits don't even possess cup measures.

 

:iagree:   I think a weight on flour is far more accurate, especially if you switch brands or anything. I have noticed far fewer issues with things not having the perfect amount of flour since switching from cups to a scale. More and more recipes I've noticed online are going to this method as well. I guess it just depends on your preference and where you get your recipes from! 

[Guest]

 

 

WHY MEASURE BY WEIGHT?

You want to get serious about baking? You want to make sure that your baking projects are consistent from batch to batch? You want to save yourself from having to wash all of your cups and measuring spoons every time you bake? Good! It's time for you to invest in a good digital scale (even an inexpensive analog scale is a big step up over measuring cups or spoons).

• It's more accurate. There are no compressibility problems when measuring by weight. Five ounces of flour is always five ounces of flour, no matter how you transfer it to the bowl. This means that every time you bake a given recipe, you're guaranteed that the ratio of ingredients is exactly the same time after time.
• It's less messy. Instead of using an array of different measuring cups which all need to be washed after you've finished mixing up your batter or dough, all you need to measure any number of ingredients with a scale is a single mixing bowl (or at most one bowl for your dry ingredients and a second bowl for your wet).

Improved accuracy and only a single bowl to clean. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

 

For anyone interested :) : http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/03/how-to-measure-wet-dry-ingredients-for-baking-accurately-best-method.html

[kiana]

It is becoming more and more common in more recently published cookbooks to use weight measures for flour, and to list the cups (if at all) parenthetically rather than as the primary measurement.

 

So it is not bizarre. It is newfangled. You can yell for the kids to get off your lawn soon ;)

 

Edit: For what it's worth, if you measure your flour by carefully fluffing into the cup and then leveling, you can easily approximate with 4 oz/cup. If you scoop and then level, your cups will be a bit heavier and I have no idea. I converted to using all weight measurements a while back and just plop my mixing bowl on the scale, hit zero, add my flour, and go back to mixing. 

Edited May 22, 2017 by kiana

[vonfirmath]

It is becoming more and more common in more recently published cookbooks to use weight measures for flour, and to list the cups (if at all) parenthetically rather than as the primary measurement.

 

So it is not bizarre. It is newfangled. You can yell for the kids to get off your lawn soon ;)

 

Edit: For what it's worth, if you measure your flour by carefully fluffing into the cup and then leveling, you can easily approximate with 4 oz/cup. If you scoop and then level, your cups will be a bit heavier and I have no idea. I converted to using all weight measurements a while back and just plop my mixing bowl on the scale, hit zero, add my flour, and go back to mixing. 

 

Isn't this why you sift flour for baking with?

[justasque]

Yes, it is bizarre. I probably own 3-4 dozen cookbooks and have at various times held subscriptions to 5 different cooking magazines, and NONE of them list bulk ingredients like flour in ounces rather than cups. The only time ounces are listed is if it's something along the lines of adding a whole can/package of an ingredient (so the chef knows what size package to purchase).

 

 

It is becoming more and more common in more recently published cookbooks to use weight measures for flour, and to list the cups (if at all) parenthetically rather than as the primary measurement.

 

So it is not bizarre. It is newfangled. You can yell for the kids to get off your lawn soon ;)

...

It's not bizarre.  

It's not even newfangled.  

My mom always used her scale for baking when I was growing up.  She had an old-fashioned balance one, with weights you had to add to one side to get your desired measurement.  It's newfangled in the US, where cooks are realizing that it is a much more accurate way to measure ingredients for baking. Europeans have had scales as part of their basic kitchen equipment for generations.  Mine is a nifty non-electric one, with a lid that, when flipped, doubles as a container for the stuff you are measuring, and a scale that can be "zeroed" by just manually moving the red line to zero.  It makes it easy to zero once you have your container on the scale, or to measure several ingredients at once by zeroing after adding each item.

[kiana]

Isn't this why you sift flour for baking with?

 

It is one reason, it also incorporates a bit more air but not much and I find fluffing it to do just as much. It was also a lot more necessary when flour might come with more lumps. That being said, I still find weighing quicker and better. 

 

It's not bizarre.  

It's not even newfangled.  

My mom always used her scale for baking when I was growing up.  She had an old-fashioned balance one, with weights you had to add to one side to get your desired measurement.  It's newfangled in the US, where cooks are realizing that it is a much more accurate way to measure ingredients for baking. Europeans have had scales as part of their basic kitchen equipment for generations.  Mine is a nifty non-electric one, with a lid that, when flipped, doubles as a container for the stuff you are measuring, and a scale that can be "zeroed" by just manually moving the red line to zero.  It makes it easy to zero once you have your container on the scale, or to measure several ingredients at once by zeroing after adding each item.

 

You are correct, I should have been less US-centric in my post. I have a digital scan of someone's gran's cookbook collected from recipes pasted from magazines from the UK and all the measurements are in ounces. 

[RootAnn]

Recognizing tbs vs tsp is important so your kid doesn't ruin a recipe. (I'm not getting involved in where this thread has gone.)

 

I teach measurements as much as possible for baking reasons. The bigger problem in my house is fractions and mixed numbers.

[Sammish]

I think you learn the conversions that are relevant to you as you go through life. I never memorized any of them, and never felt the lack - they're easy to look up. When I started baking, I quickly learned the conversions between teaspoons, tablespoons, and cups, because I used them all the time. Just like I finally got good at estimating inches when I started knitting, and yards when I started sewing. You remember what you need, and everything else is easy to look up (especially in these days of smart phones). 

 

FWIW, King Arthur Flour is a huge proponent of weighing ingredients, and both of their baking cookbooks I own use weights. Which I'm thankful for, because I find measuring flour with cups stressful - how much do you fluff?? My digital scale lives on the kitchen windowsill, and gets heavy use.

[kiana]

FWIW, King Arthur Flour is a huge proponent of weighing ingredients, and both of their baking cookbooks I own use weights. Which I'm thankful for, because I find measuring flour with cups stressful - how much do you fluff?? My digital scale lives on the kitchen windowsill, and gets heavy use.

 

KAF's website also has buttons to convert recipes between volume, us weight, and metric weight. If I'm trying to find a recipe for something specific that's not in one of my books it's one of the first ones I use. Incredibly useful website.

 

Every recipe I share with others also has the flour listed both in ounces and in 'cups, sifted then measured'. 

Edited May 24, 2017 by kiana

[ktgrok]

Gallon man!!!! That's the ONLY way I remember this stuff!  I have to picture him every time. 

[Hunter]

8 oz is a cup

2 cups is a pint

2 pints is a quart

2 quarts is a 1/2 gallon

4 quarts is a gallon.

 

My 6th grade teacher made me memorize this. God bless her wherever she is.

 

Later on, somewhere, I learned this:

 

3 Tsp in 1 Tblsp

4 Tbsp in a 1/4 cup

 

"Right" or wrong: I don't care. it has been incredibly useful to me over the years. The reason I still remember it, is that I recite it to myself and USE it so often that it stays fresh in my mind despite brain damage and PTSD memory loss. I'm aware of all the controversies and don't care. I just need to eat.

 

I've had scales in the past. I certainly don't have one now. :lol: My current "kitchen" is very primitive. :lol:

 

I actually have 2 measuring cups right now. A green plastic cup with raised markings from the camping and hiking store, and a glass pyrex from the bargain area at TJ Maxx. I eat a lot of instant food that I rehydrate with boiling water from an electric kettle and the plastic was getting kinda melty, so I made a MAJOR purchase of a pyrex measuring cup. :D

 

Instant packets and complete baking mixes come with directions that match my measuring cups. 1/2 cup pancake mix and 1/4 water fits in the omelette pan to my egg-cooker and squeezes in beside 2 eggs, and cooks just right if I overfill the egg-cooker steamer tray with exactly 5/6 cup of water. No scale needed. :lol:

 

I got anemic eating too much instant food. So now I often buy a pound of hamburger and break it up without measuring or weighing it, and steam cheese burgers in the egg-cooker, whatever they weigh. It tastes good enough to send neighbors wandering in asking for some and laughing at me and my "Suzy Bake Oven".

 

Life is too short and messy to worry past what works. 16 FLUID ounces is a pint.

 

Maybe it is a fluid ounce of water that equals an ounce by weight, but not all other things we might want to measure?

Edited May 24, 2017 by Hunter

[Bluegoat]

According to The Food Lab author you shouldn't bake with measuring cups etc anyway. We're supposed to use a food scale these days and measure in grams. ;)

 

I am not gifted at all when it comes to memorizing measurements with baking. I'm just grateful I live in the age of iPhones!

 

I hate that BS!  It is not often that cooking requires that level of precision, and it's just annoying to tell people that it does.  Are the people that say this closet drug dealers or what?

[Bluegoat]

I remember the ones I use a lot.  Actually, I think imperial measures have done more for my mathematical sense than years of math class ever did.

 

For other things, I have a kitchen calculator which converts units at the touch of a button - it also includes a chart with densities of common ingredients so you can make those calculations too.