Category Archives: Metric Cooking

Opening Up a Can of Morass

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By The Metric Maven

Bulldog Edition

My father once worked in a corn canning factory, and has many tales from his tenure there. The one story which always comes to mind is that of a co-worker, called Roscoe, who marched to a different, and rather stochastic drummer. Roscoe never seemed to be able to get his time card to remotely match his apparent work schedule. One day his boss blew his top after seeing Roscoe’s time card and demanded he immediately come into his office. The boss looked at Rosco and inquired about the entries on his time card.

Boss:  I’ve looked at your card for this week and on Wednesday it indicates you worked 25 hours on that day.

Roscoe:  Yeah.

Boss: Roscoe, could you please explain to me how you could possibly have worked 25 hours on Wednesday.

Rosco: I didn’t take lunch that day.

It was tales like that which made me believe that the canning plant was operated by a mad hatter, with help from Bizzaroworld.

Recently my father sent me this table from a new cookbook:

How could I help but wonder if Roscoe had been tasked with determining the can nomenclature and quantity. An eight ounce can is 1 cup, which makes as much sense as any of the Ye Olde English Arbitrary Grouping of Weights and Measures do. Who would have thought that the next size up from an eight ounce can would be a picnic sized can? Every Midwestern picnic I’ve ever attended would always have cans of Van Camp’s Pork and Beans, “freshly opened” for the occasion, right in front of my eyes. Their website indicates the available cans are in 8 oz, 15 oz, 31 oz, 53 oz, and 114 oz sizes. Well, the cookbook has the wrong table so we’ll re-write it to conform with the VCPB default units:

Contents of Standard Cans:

8 oz Can = 8 ounces
Picnic = 10 ounces
No. 300 = 14 ounces
No. 1 tall = 16 ounces
No. 303 = 16 ounces
No. 2 = 20 ounces
No. 2 1/2 = 28 ounces
No. 3 = 32 ounces
No. 5 = 58 ounces
No. 10 = 80 ounces

The cookbook only matches one value of  VC Pork and Beans. They do not have a “picnic” size can. How on earth was I able to go on all those picnics? Was it a massive cover-up by the well-meaning women of my childhood? My father indicated that the corn canning plant at which he worked, exclusively used No. 303 cans. But how would he know if someone slipped some contraband No. 1 tall cans into the to loading dock?

Among my eclectic collection of books about engineering and science, I have zero references on standard sized “tin cans.” Wikipedia, as usual does not disappoint, and has a section on standard sizes. I’m sure the diligent volunteers there can clear up the confusion:

Can sizes in the United States have an assortment of designations and sizes. For example, size 7/8 contains one serving of half a cup with an estimated weight of 4 ounces; size 1 “picnic” has two or three servings totalling one and a quarter cups with an estimated weight of 10½ ounces; size 303 has four servings totalling 2 cups weighing 15½ ounces; and size 10 cans, most widely used by food services selling to cafeterias and restaurants, have twenty-five servings totalling 13 cups with an estimated weight of 103½ ounces (size of a roughly 3 pound coffee can). These are all “U.S. customary” cups, and not equivalent to the former Imperial standard of the British Empire or the later Commonwealth.

Wait a minute? The picnic size has 1 1/4 cups, which the last time I checked my Ye Olde English references was volume, which would translate into 10 fluid ounces, but it is designated as about 10 1/2 weight ounces? My understanding is that one fluid ounce of water = 1.0425 avoirdupois ounces more or less, so 10 fluid ounces of water is approximately 10.425 weight ounces. This is the picnic size which has an estimated weight of 10.5 ounces. This assumes the density of beans is the same as the density of water.

Apparently this means I should have written the table:

8 oz Can = 8 fluid ounces = 8.34 ounces
Picnic = 10 fluid  ounces = 10.43 ounces
No. 300 = 14 fluid ounces = 14.59 ounces
No. 1 tall = 16 fluid ounces = 16.68 ounces
No. 303 = 16 fluid ounces = 16.68 ounces
No. 2 = 20 fluid ounces = 20.85 ounces
No. 2 1/2 = 28 fluid ounces = 29.19 ounces
No. 3 = 32 fluid ounces = 33.36 ounces
No. 5 = 58 fluid ounces = 60.46 ounces
No. 10 = 80 fluid ounces = 84.4 ounces

When Van Camp’s gives their can sizes in ounces, is it fluid ounces or weight ounces?—with avoirdupois assumed? Perhaps Wikipedia can shed more light into this morass:

In the United States, cook books will sometimes reference cans by size. These sizes are currently published by the Can Manufacturers Institute and may be expressed in three-digit numbers, as measured in whole and sixteenths of an inch for the container’s nominal outside dimensions: a 307 x 512 would thus measure 3 and 7/16″ in diameter by 5 and 3/4″ (12/16″) in height. Notice that this is not in millimetres. Older can numbers are often expressed as single digits, their contents being calculated for room-temperature water as approximately eleven ounces (#1 “picnic” can), twenty ounces (#2), thirty-two ounces (#3) fifty-eight ounces (#5) and one-hundred-ten ounces (#10 “coffee” can).[9]

Ok, so “new” cans are all given as a volume of the outside of the can in 1/16 inch increments, but the “old” can numbers relate to the weight of room-temperature water? As the rest of the world might actually think we in the US did something rational with a measurement, they have to warn them that the can numbers do not relate to millimeters.

The Can Manufacturers Institute has this to say:

The CMI Voluntary Can and End Dimension Reference Manual is a compilation of technical information developed by committees of the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI). Intended for use by CMI members and other interested industry representatives, this publication is available to the public as a service of the Can Manufacturers Institute. CMI does not provide either an expressed or implied warranty as to their viability or accuracy.

Ah, yes, following long established US tradition, the values provided by industry are all voluntary and they are not to be held responsible if the values are not used or met or whatever. How dare you think they might be held to measurement standards. Here are the very, very, voluntary values:

So what values are used in metric countries? According to Wikipedia:

In countries and regions that use the metric system of measures, most tins are made in 250, 500, 750 ml (millilitre) and 1 L (litre) sizes (250 ml is approximately 1 cup or 8 ounces). In situations where products from the USA have been repackaged for sale in such countries, it is common to have odd sizes such as 3.8 L (1 USA gallon), 1.9 L (1/2 USA gallon), and 946 ml (USA 2 pints / 1 quart).

In metric countries one would expect volume in milliliters and/or mass in grams. Both would be very good.  My pantry shelf indicates that cans of beans and sauces in the US are all given in weight, so the only two values on the label are in weight in ounces and mass in grams. Therefore one much ask a simple question: “why did the cookbook offer the contents in cups?–which are clearly volume—when they are sold by mass?” The simple answer is I don’t know, and I doubt they would have a rational answer either. The designation of cans in the US is archaic, irrational and yet again shows that leaving the magic of technical Darwinism to determine the labeling of quantities in our economy only produces a chaotic situation which only confuses and does not offer clarity. Because this is the case, we are only left peering into an an open can of worms because we have never had a mandatory metric system switch-over in the US.

If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page and contribute. Also purchase his books about the metric system:

The first book is titled: Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure. It is a succinct set of essays  that explain why the absence of the metric system in the US is detrimental to our personal heath and our economy. These essays are separately available for free on my website,  but the book has them all in one place in print. The book may be purchased from Amazon here.


The second book is titled The Dimensions of the Cosmos. It takes the metric prefixes from yotta to Yocto and uses each metric prefix to describe a metric world. The book has a considerable number of color images to compliment the prose. It has been receiving good reviews. I think would be a great reference for US science teachers. It has a considerable number of scientific factoids and anecdotes that I believe would be of considerable educational use. It is available from Amazon here.


The third book is called Death By A Thousand Cuts, A Secret History of the Metric System in The United States. This monograph explains how we have been unable to legally deal with weights and measures in the United States from George Washington, to our current day. This book is also available on Amazon here.

An Open Letter Response To: “Supporting American Choices on Measurement”

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Dr. Patrick Gallagher — Director of NIST

Dear Dr. Gallagher:

This open letter is in response to your email/post entitled Supporting American Choices on Measurement which you composed in response to a We The People petition, which calls for making the metric system (that is, SI) the exclusive measurement system of the United States. In brief, what you offer is not a substantive response to a reasonable petition for action on an increasingly urgent issue, but only condescension and airy rationalization for perpetuating our current bureaucratic stasis.

First, the metric system, is a system. The random collection of measures used in the US is not a system. They are neither equivalent nor comparable. I am disturbed that the head of NIST can speak of the metric system, and our potpourri of units, as even remotely comparable in either intellectual stature or technical merit. But far more important, the very thesis of Supporting American Choices on Measurement is false on the face of it, as there is no actual opportunity for a metric option in this nation. In my postings on metric, I have written about The Invisible Metric Embargo in the US, which does not allow me to purchase metric tools—despite my desires as a consumer. One simply cannot readily purchase metric-only, mm-only, tape measures, and other tools in the US. I’ve had to obtain mine from Australia to use in my Engineering Practice. They are the same tools that are used in metric building construction, which the US government has quietly abandoned after the 1990s. Metric construction saves 10-15% when compared with our non-system. The Australians have been reaping these metric rewards for over thirty years. I have detailed this in Building a Metric Shed. Over the counter medicines are allowed by your “freedom of choice” to offer only teaspoons and tablespoons. Feral Units Endanger Our Health details the teaspoon/tablespoon, gram/grain misdosage problem, which has been acknowledged by the medical community since at least 1902. Mandatory dosage cups in milliliters have been eschewed by industry for years, to the detriment of public health and justified, probably for the most part, by the need for “freedom of choice.”

I may have the choice to set my GPS to meters and kilometers, but I don’t have the choice to press a button within my car and change the road signs to meters and kilometers. The choice of only miles and feet (in vulgar fractions no less) on US road signs was decided by filibuster, in 1978, by Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa. The details of how this mandatory requirement for miles and feet on US road signs came about, may be found in A Tale of Two Iowans. What channel do I watch to see a metric only, or even a metric any weather broadcast in the US? Metric measures in weather broadcasts also ended in the late 1970s. I would like to see snow and rain totals in millimeters, but I do not have that choice.

The public teachers of the 1970s began to teach metric, but quickly realized that the US was to be the only country (other than Liberia and Myanmar) which had a government that would not institute a true metric conversion. The teachers were left without a measurement ecosystem outside of their classroom to which they could teach, and so metric instruction was “all dressed up with nowhere to go.” Metric instruction has become perfunctory.

If we actually had the completely open, voluntary system about which you sing peons of praise, then why is there any restriction on manufacturers to include labeling other than metric at this moment? And why do you have to work “to make it possible” for metric only labeling? If it is not allowed right now, then metric only is obviously not a voluntary choice for industry. The non-system of the US is mandatory.  It does not support your thesis that everyone has a choice.

That measurement units need “context” for meaning, and are chosen depending upon the given circumstances is nonsensical. Why not just create a new measurement unit for each circumstance—like medieval cultures did? The non-system we use in the US, measures feet in barleycorns (three barleycorns in an inch you know), to determine shoe size, instead of millimeters. What possible context makes the measurement of human feet require barleycorns as a unit? Perhaps a foot should be measured in feet? That seems like a logical context. My essay Brannock and Barleycorns might help you with context when considering this question.

You cite examples of multiple units which are in use and describe the same quantity as something wondrous which we should lionize. This is not an advantage, it is a problem called unit proliferation. In the US, people who work with tools have to needlessly purchase both metric and inch tools. This doubles the infrastructure cost for working Americans. It is also a large drag on our economy. Weights and measures is The Invisible Infrastructure of a nation. Ours is in complete decay, yet you celebrate this fact.

There is no “seamless transition” between metric and our non-system. Dual units only encourage unnecessary opportunities for mistakes. Metric minimizes them. The DART and Mars Climate Orbiter mission failures which occurred because of the “choice” to use multiple measurement units, are examples which should not be swept under the rug with charming prose, like “seamless transition.”

Incidentally, your statement that the metric system is universal in science and industry is also demonstrably false. I grant you that it should be, but I know from personal experience that the US aerospace industry is currently hamstrung by something called the mil. A mil is one thousandth of an inch. Now, you might suppose that this would be an ideal time for a metric conversion in US aerospace: after all, with the long-overdue retirement of the Space Shuttle, the United States has no astronaut-capable space vehicle. But the contract for Orion, the manned vehicle intended to replace the Shuttle, was awarded to Lockheed Martin, at least in part, on the understanding that all engineering would be submitted in thousandths of an inch.

Dr. Gallagher, your response has shown that, as I predicted, this petition would be a feckless exercise in futility, and of no lobbying value. The public is viewed not as We The People, but They The Powerless. Your response demonstrates an apparent technical ignorance about the metric system. It makes you appear to have not even a basic understanding of how the measurement system that powers engineering and science around the world is used, and it’s massive advantages for society as a whole.  I would think It should be obvious to a Director of NIST, that a measurement system and a spoken language are two completely different intellectual constructs. Especially a Director with a background in physics and philosophy. My essay Orwell and The Metric System might be instructive if you are unclear on this point.

To compare the measurement situation we face in the US to bilingual education is mendacious. Your whitewash of the history of how the current non-system of measurements were finally defined in terms of metric standards, hides the fact there was no other technical choice. There was no alternative. Without using the metric standards supplied from our signing of the Treaty of the Meter, science and industry in this nation could have ground to a halt. T.C. Mendehall had no choice but to announce that metric standards would be used to define our farrago of units. This is because of government inaction on mandating metrication, and the fact that no alternative measurement standards existed for our non-system. The Constitution tasks Congress with fixing the weights and measures of the US, which they have neglected with vigor from the founding of the republic.

As Director of NIST, I cannot comprehend how you could assert there is no weights and measurements problem in the US whatsoever, and everything is just hunky-dory. This is clearly not the case. I have written forty-six essays over the last year or so detailing how our lack of exclusive metrication, costs us money, endangers our health and decreases our industrial competitiveness. The late Pat Naughtin left a classic Google video lecture, and a mountain of information on how damaging it is for the US not to have metric. How can you have apparently not investigated any of it?—and included it in your response? The information is freely available. I can only ask with exasperation why are you not promoting the metric system?—why are you not engaged in the carrying out the task for which the public has employed you?–to promote standards. The metric system is the standard of ninety-five percent of the worlds population. Why are you not promoting this standard with the sense of urgency that it deserves?

Your choice to issue Supporting American Choices on Measurement late on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend is as transparently cynical as is your response. The timing is calculated to minimize or eliminate any press coverage with three days of distraction. In doing this you are blatantly, and apparently willfully, ignoring the 25,000 49,914 American citizens who signed the petition for the US to adopt the metric system. Because of your callous and dismissive treatment of an earnest request made by these citizens for the implementation of the metric system, this only leads to a justified belief that our public servants have no interest in serving the public, or the public interest.

Respectfully,

The Metric Maven
US Citizen and Professional Engineer

P.S. To my (at this point, fairly) long time readers, I would like to state that my next regularly scheduled blog on 2013-05-30, was written, and scheduled, long before Dr. Gallagher issued his response to the metric petition. When you read my upcoming blog, you will see the same manner of argument as Dr Gallagher’s has been offered for almost a century. Dr. Gallagher only parrots the antique prose in a contemporary fashion.

If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page and contribute. Also purchase his books about the metric system:

The first book is titled: Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure. It is a succinct set of essays  that explain why the absence of the metric system in the US is detrimental to our personal heath and our economy. These essays are separately available for free on my website,  but the book has them all in one place in print. The book may be purchased from Amazon here.


The second book is titled The Dimensions of the Cosmos. It takes the metric prefixes from yotta to Yocto and uses each metric prefix to describe a metric world. The book has a considerable number of color images to compliment the prose. It has been receiving good reviews. I think would be a great reference for US science teachers. It has a considerable number of scientific factoids and anecdotes that I believe would be of considerable educational use. It is available from Amazon here.


The third book is not of direct importance to metric education. It is called Death By A Thousand Cuts, A Secret History of the Metric System in The United States. This monograph explains how we have been unable to legally deal with weights and measures in the United States from George Washington, to our current day. This book is also available on Amazon here.