Canada, for all of its wonderful traits, is a wee bit confused in the measurement department. We officially switched over to the metric system in the 1970’s, but we did a pretty half-assed job of it. We measure distances in kilometers, and temperature in Celsius, but our stoves are in Fahrenheit, and the great majority of our grocery stores advertise prices in cost per pound.
It wasn’t until I went to Australia, where they are 100% metric, that I realized how haphazardly we bounce between the systems. Anyhow, between my love of cooking (most of my cookbooks are American or British, and therefore Imperial… though 2 different versions of Imperial…) and my love of travel and common sense, I know both systems quite well, and I can tell you without a moment’s of hesitation that I prefer the metric system.
Most packaged goods in Canada are sold with both metric and imperial measurements noted.
Adjusting to metric system after using the imperial system all your life is sort of like learning how to drive in manual after driving nothing but automatic vehicles. It’s a bit intimidating at first, but with a small amount of perseverance you will quickly find it’s nothing at all, and you will likely prefer it (even better with metric than with manual as metric is far easier than imperial when you look at it objectively, and as a big plus, hills and stop-and-go traffic are not an issue as with manual). If you’ve ever browsed my blog you’ll have likely noticed that the great majority of my recipes are in metric measurements. If you’re American, this has likely confused you. I don’t want to confuse you, so I’ve written up a handy guide to the metric system to try and convince you to give it a go.
Believe it or not, 20°C is actually a pretty nice day.
Once the darling (well, really the only) measurement system of the globe, there are now only 3 countries in the world that still use the imperial system as their official measurement system.
Countries that still officially use the Imperial system. Source.
And, of course, I get it. Stick to what you know, right? (There’s a reason I don’t speak a dozen languages.) It’s easy because you know it already, and math kind of sucks (especially when you’ve been out of school for a while and you have made it your goal to prove to that annoying 3rd grade math teacher of yours that math really isn’t all that useful when you’re a grown up).
But that’s where I want to seduce you with the wonder and awesomeness of the metric system! I will make you three promises:
- The metric system is easily even if you don’t know it already
- If you think math kind of sucks, I can promise you that you will do far less math than you have to when you use the imperial system.
- You will look like quite the champ whenever you visit a foreign grocery store or read recipes from anywhere else in the world. It’s pretty much the easiest way to become bilingual.
- (fourth, extra bonus promise: You will sound much lighter in kilograms, and much taller in centimetres!)
My dirty (and confused) stove uses Fahrenheit.
Here’s a few things you will never have to worry about with the metric system:
- You will never have to divide anything by 12, or 8, or 32, or any number other than 10 (and every third grader can tell you that’s so easy practically cheater division).
- You will never have to wonder if a unit is the fluid or weight version of itself (cough, ounces, cough).
- You will never have to worry if a unit is the British Imperial or American Imperial version of itself.
- No more fractions!
- You can do away with most of measurement type memorization as everything is intuitively named and easily figured out—you don’t have to know there are 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, and 1,760 yards in a mile. Where did those numbers come from?! With the metric system, it is always a multiple of 10. Think of what you can do with all that extra room in your brain!
Do I have you even moderately convinced? I sure hope so. Stay tuned for part 2, where I’ll walk you through the basics of metric and you’ll become an expert in no time!
I think baking recipes in metric usually are better than imperial. That said….I guess there goes my pound cake recipe…lol
What, 454 gram cake doesn’t have quite the same ring to it? 😛
I’m a metric-minded gal stuck in an imperial country (US). My scales are all imperial, my favorite recipes are all metric. That’s where my conversion app comes handy. A metric scale is on my wish list, though!
I sort of half feel your pain, Gina—I sure do a lot of metric explaining these days 😛 Hence this two-part series, haha. Why not order a scale from Canada? We’ll hook you up 😉 All my scales do lb, oz, kg, and g. I suppose that’s the benefit of living in a bi-measurement country… sure didn’t work for my being bi-lingual, though 😛
I’ve got the opposite problem!
We have several diet restrictions, so I always look online for recipes which can suit our requirements. Those recipes mostly come from English-speaking blogs, meant for an American audience.
So I had to learn my way around the cup/tbsp/tsp system and Fahrenheit.
I have to say that I love the measuring tsp/tbsp because it’s so precise for small quantities of liquid or spices. At home we would use the spoons meant for eating and they are not very reliable.
For the cups, I’ve mixed feelings. Great for liquids, but not for solids as they are more imprecise.
For Fahrenheit, I wrote a conversion chart and I hung it in my kitchen, in a visible place, but I think that some blogger should consider that they have an international readership and add Celsius degrees to their recipes.
Hey Mrs G! I’m definitely with you on the usefulness of tsp and tbsp for measuring things like spices and salt. I’ve never really trusted my scale with such small measurements—maybe if I had a suuuuper accurate one, but alas, I do not. And yes, three cheers for accommodating both systems in recipes. As this article notes, Canada is pretty confused on this, but I’m trying 😛
I use both metric and US imperial, depending on the situation. There are great benefits to the metric system, but I think imperial still has value. I have to deal with fractions of measurements a lot in my work, and I find the imperial system much easier to use when I have to divide a measurement by 3 or 4, since that’s how the whole system is set up anyway. A foot is a third of a yard. A teaspoon is one third of a tablespoon. A pound is 16 ounces, which is divisible by 4. I do, however, wish my baking recipes were measured out by weight rather than by volume. It would be much easier to put the mixing bowl on my kitchen scale and just pour the bulk ingredients in. I love your blog, by the way, and I look forward to your posts!
Agreed, Sam—I find I gravitate towards the Imperial system when it comes to estimating quantities on sight. “1 cup” just paints a better picture in my head than “250mL”. I also prefer to measure out spices and what not by tsp/tbsp than by weight (though I suppose I could also measure my spices in mL… but I don’t…). Eh. It’s useful to know both systems, and that’s kind of my point 🙂
I’m probably heavily biased in this, as I live in Sweden and have used the metric ssytem all my life…(and drive a manual car!) but I just wanted to say that we have tbsp and tsp as measurements as well, and they seem to be pretty close to their American counterparts. You can buy measuring spoon sets where the smallest unit is 1 mL and the biggest 100 mL (1 dL), and in between there’s 5 mL (tsp), 15 mL (tbsp) and 50 mL. I don’t know if that helps, but everything that can spread the love of the metric system is good 🙂
Ha, thanks Charlotta! I finally learned to drive manual last year, and it’s pretty darn fun… as long as you’re not in stop & go traffic on a hill!
I’m not so sure. As a Canadian, I’m on board with Celsius for outdoor temperatures. Water freezes at roughly 0 degrees. Therefore, anything below 0 is cold, anything above 0 means Spring is on the way! But Fahrenheit is better for baking, cooking, brewing, and soapmaking, where precise temperatures are needed, because Fahrenheit has more degrees per change of temperature. (Whereas you would have to use fractions of a degree with Celsius, which is a headache.)
It’s funny—the things you mention clearly indicate the way we do things in Canada. We’re used to baking in Farenheit, so of course it makes more sense—it’s familiar. Sure, there are more degrees, but most people typically use only the 00/25/50/75’s. We don’t really need all the degrees between 200°F and 450°F (that’s what my oven has, at least). Even if we did, I couldn’t dial them in with any precision, and my baking turns out just fine. It’s also worth noting that many fine cooks and chefs from Australia, the UK, and other much-more-metric countries than ours do just fine with their Celsius ovens. I’ve got a few cookbooks written by British chefs and all the temperatures in Celsius. I’ve yet to bung anything up because of it 🙂
You could also argue that scientists work with Celsius, and they need far more precision than we do 😉
Hi Marie,
I’m wondering how to accurately figure out in ml how much product I have when I measure in weights (grams)? I have been using specific gravity to calculate but I’m worried that I’m not doing it right and I don’t want to short anyone on product. I also want to be sure I’m ordering the correct amount of ingredients for how much I’ll need! It’s tough to keep this question short so I hope it’s clear what I’m asking! 🙂
Hey Ashley—I’m afraid this is rather out of my depth! I’d probably just sell my products by weight 😛
I’m probably going to sound silly, but here it goes anyways. I never paid attention to ounces being measured in weight or volume. So when recipes ask for let say, 2 oz of baking soda, is that 2 oz by weight or volume? How can I convert this to grams? You’re going to laugh, but when I was in college every pot smoker bought their weed in grams. We always knew the good stuff was $20 per gram. I think some drug lord out there knew that us stoners would get confused so he decided to use the metric system for us. Well that was back in the early 2,000’s. Sorry for the rambling, I’m just a confused American.
Gnome Beard
It’s always by weight unless it’s “fl oz”. Yet another reason the imperial system is stupid, lol. “Let’s give two completely different measurements the same name!” WHY?! 😛 For conversions, just google “2 oz in grams” and google does all the work 🙂
I grew up with the metric system in Sweden but after spending almost 18 years in the US I kind of know both systems by now. When I started making my own skincare products a few years ago a lot of the recipes I found were in ounces. I soon realized that if I want to get the same result it’s so much more accurate to use grams! If I am off by part of one gram it’s ok. But if I measure in ounces the difference can be huge since there are 32 grams in one ounce! When I make bread I weigh the ingredients as well since it’s impossible to know that you get the same amount of flour etc in your measuring cup every time. At times when I have been buying fabric I have told the person in the store how much I would like in inches lol. Then it gets tricky because they have to divide my inches into yards, feet and inches.. It would be so much easier if we used the same system! I got a cook book from my former mother in law in Australia, they use cups but they are smaller than an American cup!( 225 ml/250ml)I can’t say I have used the book that much..
I feel ya! We have a similar thing going on in Canada, where the unit/system we use often varies depending on the thing we’re measuring, often very arbitrarily! For instance, the temperature outside is in C, but baking/oven temperatures are in F. I agree that they are both useful to know, and that the mental math can get very weird, ha. It’s a good thing Siri is quite quick if I need help!