topic Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen in BreakPoint

Metrication errors in the kitchen

altenbach — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 18:35:52 GMT

In engineering, being aware of units Is one of the most important things. Confusion about units has caused some serious issues in the past and NIST even has a website listing some of them.

Since I like to BBQ once in a while, I have a supply of Annatto paste. However I am totally confused about the math behind the instructions.

Not only are the instructions different in Spanish and English, The yield is completely off.

Spanish: Dilute with sour orange juice or vinegar, sufficient for 12.75kg of meat (~26 lbs!)

English: dilute with vinegar or olive oil, enough for 6.6lbs of meat (~3kg!)

Can somebody figure out where that factor of ~4 comes from? While close, It does not match an accidental conversion in the wrong direction. (6.6kg != 12.75lbs) or anything else I can think of.

(Since it is a Mexican product, I would assume that the Spanish instructions are actually correct.)

(side note: This is probably more than 10 years old and I kept the box exactly because of the mentioned confusion. The current product looks very similar but I cannot find a picture of the current instructions to see if it ever got corrected)

Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen

AnalogKid2DigitalMan — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 20:02:44 GMT

Darn those LabVIEW units! 🙂

-AK2DM

Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen

Yamaeda — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 14:15:18 GMT

Maybe they used the Habsburg pound? "Habsburg (civil) pound of 16 ounces was later defined in terms of 560.012 g "

Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen

altenbach — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 16:21:26 GMT

@Yamaeda wrote:

Maybe they used the Habsburg pound? "Habsburg (civil) pound of 16 ounces was later defined in terms of 560.012 g "

That would translate the 6.6 ponds to 3.696kg, not even close to 12.75kg..

A conversion factor of 0.517 applied in the wrong direction would account for the values, so a metric pound (500g) would be closer.

I am still amazed by the four(!) significant digits in yield (12.75kg) when they don't even specify the dilution ratio or actual measures of vinegar, orange juice, or olive oil. 😄

A rub is not even proportional to meat weight. I believe that is typically proportional to meat surface area. 😄

Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen

Henrik_Volkers — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 10:27:21 GMT

Different country (language), different taste?

(or different meat 😉 )

Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen

altenbach — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 13:50:22 GMT

@Henrik_Volkers wrote:

Different country (language), different taste?

(or different meat 😉 )

It is true that Mexican restaurants outside Mexico often make some Gringo'fied modifications that are less spicy, but Annatto has quite a mild and pleasant flavor, the primary function is the bright color

Both languages list the same meats (beef, pork, chicken, fish).

Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen

JÞB — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 20:43:04 GMT

@altenbach wrote:

@Henrik_Volkers wrote:

Different country (language), different taste?

(or different meat 😉 )

It is true that Mexican restaurants outside Mexico often make some Gringo'fied modifications that are less spicy, but Annatto has quite a mild and pleasant flavor, the primary function is the bright color

Both languages list the same meats (beef, pork, chicken, fish).

Cooking is a science I am very disappointed! Hypothesis , Trial, Documentation...repeat!

Do the words "season to taste" mean nothing? Try a few ... you will (sometimes) like the results! You can use the failed formulae for septic cleansing.

Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen

altenbach — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 14:14:05 GMT

It's not really a "seasoning" and more used as a marinade, primarily for the color.

Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen

JÞB — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 14:30:24 GMT

@altenbach wrote:

It's not really a "seasoning" and more used as a marinade, primarily for the color.

Why would color matter? (Unless you add turmeric to potato salad)

I repeat, season to taste 😋

Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen

altenbach — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 15:15:47 GMT

Turmeric has significantly more flavor. Annatto is different. You should try it in your potato salad. 😄

(Quote: "It is often used to impart a yellow to red-orange color to foods, but sometimes also for its flavor"

Color is important and plays a crucial role in food presentation! Sometimes I even use butterfly pea flower tea when cooking rice. 😄

More questionable is treating meat with carbon monoxide to retain the fake bright red color, giving a fresher appearance.

Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen

JÞB — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 21:09:40 GMT

@altenbach wrote:

Turmeric has significantly more flavor. Annatto is different. You should try it in your potato salad. 😄

(Quote: "It is often used to impart a yellow to red-orange color to foods, but sometimes also for its flavor"

Color is important and plays a crucial role in food presentation! Sometimes I even use butterfly pea flower tea when cooking rice. 😄

More questionable is treating meat with carbon monoxide to retain the fake bright red color, giving a fresher appearance.

Awesome, but seriously WHAT required the 4.1 boolean change? I honestly never understood and, would like to learn.

It is a serious question. I never found any document that answered that. I hoped that your experience would help. 4.1 and 7.1 ?

Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen

jcarmody — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 09:29:10 GMT

@altenbach wrote:

[...]

Color is important and plays a crucial role in food presentation! Sometimes I even use butterfly pea flower tea when cooking rice. 😄

I found a distillery in NC that adds butterfly pea flower to their gin. I add lemon juice and honey simple syrup...

Re: Metrication errors in the kitchen

tst — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 12:24:44 GMT

@JÞB wrote:

Awesome, but seriously WHAT required the 4.1 boolean change? I honestly never understood and, would like to learn.

It is a serious question. I never found any document that answered that. I hoped that your experience would help. 4.1 and 7.1 ?

Not sure why this is here. I assume you wanted it here.

Anyway, the LV help for Type Cast has this to say:

LabVIEW 4.x and earlier stores Boolean data in two bytes unless the data is in an array, in which case LabVIEW stores each Boolean element in a single bit. LabVIEW 5.0 and later stores Boolean values in a single byte, regardless of whether it is in an array

LV 8.0 had a change to the type descriptors format, so things that deal with that (like Flatten to String) would have the option for dealing with 7.x data.