Converting to Metric

Appears in
Professional Cooking
Professional Cooking

By Wayne Gisslen

Published 2014

  • About
Most people think the metric system is much harder to learn than it really is. This is because they think about metric units in terms of U.S. units. They read there are 28.35 grams in an ounce, and they are immediately convinced they will never be able to learn metrics.

Do not worry about being able to convert between U.S. and metric units. This is a very important point to remember, especially if you think the metric system might be hard to learn.

The reason for this is simple. You will usually be working in either one system or the other. You will rarely, if ever, have to convert from one to the other. (An exception might be if you have equipment based on one system but want to use a recipe written in the other.) If U.S. kitchens change to the metric system, everyone will use scales that measure in grams and kilograms, volume measures that measure in liters and deciliters, and thermometers that indicate degrees Celsius. And everyone will use recipes that indicate these units. No one will have to worry about how many grams are in an ounce. All one will have to remember is the information in Table 4.4.