News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy. Parent comment

Re:Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and En... by tialaramex on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @04:21PM (#21207566)
Is coffee really per 500g? That's a weird quantity. I'd expect kilo or 100g.

The UK used to require bread to be 400g or multiples (so a regular sized loaf of bread is 800g) but it eventually got rid of that rule. Obviously years ago (this rule was hundreds of years old) it will have been some amount in an obsolete unit rather than grams, but once metrication happened the bakers picked 400g as the replacement size. I'm told it got rid of this law a few years back, but certainly last time I bought a loaf of bread it was still 800 grams.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and En... by NeedMoreTea on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @05:41PM (#21208456)
Bread used to always be 1lb (454g) and 2lb (908g) loaves. They shrank a little with the move to metric. :)
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and En... by tialaramex on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @09:05PM (#21209925)
"used to be" prior to World War 2. The loaves shrank (and ingredient quality worsened) as part of rationing. After the war better ingredients became available but loaves remained 14oz, which is slightly less than 400g. Conveniently 14oz is not enough under 400g to count as "undersize" in the regulations, so generously filled 14oz tins produced compliant 400g batches when Britain went metric.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and En... by NeedMoreTea on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @09:37PM (#21210086)
Hmm, never knew that. :)

I knew of the Bread Act that set it 1lb/2lb, and the Middle Ages origins that worked "backwards" - when the price of the loaf was fixed and the weight of the loaf was varied as the price of wheat changed.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and En... by OJFord on Thursday October 10, 2019 @04:11AM (#21212067)
In some sense that makes much more sense - the people are starving? Well, supply more grain then.

Doesn't quite gel with modern manufacturing, though!

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and En... by freeflight on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @05:27PM (#21208303)
500g coffee packs are pretty much the regular size in Germany too, at least for pre-ground [0]. Packs with whole roasted beans are usually on the bigger end.

[0] https://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/354801_...

[ Parent | on HN ]