454g of butter

pj9999

Isn't it gas how things like Irish butter is still sold based on the weight of the old pound measurement...454g in other words.

If the equivalent of a pound was 554g, the unit of sale would've been rounded down to 500g about 10 years ago.

dudara

It's tradition really - people still ask for pounds of mince in the butchers, although all butchers quote the price per kilo now.

91011

pj9999 wrote: »

Isn't it gas how things like Irish butter is still sold based on the weight of the old pound measurement...454g in other words.

If the equivalent of a pound was 554g, the unit of sale would've been rounded down to 500g about 10 years ago.

More based on nothing negativity - if what you are saying was true, then the pint (568ml) would have been rounded down to 500ml! - But that hasn't happened.

Btw - if as a nation we were more positive, maybe we'd get out of the recession a hell of a lot quicker.

I'm overly positive (some say on the sickening side:D) but my company had made a profit this year (great year for export to NI & great local Irish business) and I recently made three temporary Christmas staff permanent, so three less people on the dole and three more families with an extra few bob in their pockets!

jor el

pj9999 wrote: »

If the equivalent of a pound was 554g, the unit of sale would've been rounded down to 500g about 10 years ago.

Why hasn't it been rounded to 400g then? Why is milk still available in 568ml cartons? As 91011 says, a pint is still a pint, and not 500ml. We still pay by weight or volume anyway, no matter if you ask for it in lbs, kg or tonne (or ton!), so it really makes no difference.

I don't see how this is in any way an issue, more a pointless and inaccurate rant.

MunsterCycling

The only reason for the metric measures is European regulations that state items can only be sold in metric, doesn't mean they can't use the old equivalents.

dr ro

i think milk is sold in litres and half litres now. Not pints anymore. I'm about 89%sure.

coylemj

While we're at it, why are eggs still sold by the half-dozen? Shouldn't we have converted egg cartons to decimal at the same time as we abolished the bob and the tanner back in 1971?

Let's have egg cartons in fives and tens please, away with these antediluvian dozens and half-dozens!

ardmacha

This is tradition of a sort. At one point butter smuggling was an issue owing to a subsidy and oddly enough butter ended up in 454g cartons in the Republic while in the North it is in 500g cartons. Cheese was the other way around, being sold in llbs in NI for as long as possible.

What I don't understand is why the current RTE programme about people losing wieght keeps going on about "stones" with Kgs never being mentioned.

Zab

I'm no milk expert but I personally haven't seen a pint of milk since they stopped delivering them to my door, and that was quite a long time ago. And a pint of beer is ordered as a pint whereas the size of butter has little relevance (to me anyway, just has to be around the right size to last a certain amount of time): I would support 500g blocks of butter!

Of course, they're just going to (quite rightly) charge for the extra 46g, so I don't see why it's preferential in the way that OP is inferring. In fact, I'd say that's why it hasn't happened: none of them want to stick their neck out and have the most expensive "block" on the shelf.

coylemj

ardmacha wrote: »

What I don't understand is why the current RTE programme about people losing wieght keeps going on about "stones" with Kgs never being mentioned.

Because most Irish people still monitor their weight in stones and pounds given that bathroom scales sold here can do both imperial and metric. We also find it easier to visualise someone if we're told their weight in stones. There was a guy with a weight problem on Ray Darcy this morning, Darcy weighed him on some kind of industrial machine and announced that he weighed 41 stone, it wouldn't have had anywhere near the same impact on the listener if he had announced that in kgs.

While we're on about RTE and journalists...... for years after petrol and diesel was priced in litres at the pumps, newspapers and RTE insisted on screaming headlines about how much a gallon of petrol was going to cost after some crisis or tax rise, it took them years to give up on the gallon though I see the BBC recently talking about the £6 gallon!

Cabaal

ardmacha wrote: »

What I don't understand is why the current RTE programme about people losing wieght keeps going on about "stones" with Kgs never being mentioned.

Agreed, stating body weight in kg is far more accurate then stating it in stones

pinkypinky

2 points: my local supermarket sells pints of milk in glass bottles (as well as cartons in standard metric weights). I think it's a local producer who supplies this bottled milk.

Re: weightloss in stones/lbs vs kilos.
Of course we should be using kilos but for people losing weight, pounds are more quantifiable. If you have a lot to lose, the first few weeks might see a kilo+ loss but once you settle into it, you'd be unlikely to lose more than a kilo a week but 1 or 1.5lbs is easily achieved. It's all about the psychology. I lost weight years ago and it really helped me to learn how to measure weight in metric properly....because I was weighing food and because I knew Americans and Europeans, who when asking me how much I'd lost would need to know in lbs and kilos, of course most people here needed to know in stones/lbs.

snubbleste

pinkypinky wrote: »

Re: weightloss in stones/lbs vs kilos.
Of course we should be using kilos but for people losing weight, pounds are more quantifiable. If you have a lot to lose, the first few weeks might see a kilo+ loss but once you settle into it, you'd be unlikely to lose more than a kilo a week but 1 or 1.5lbs is easily achieved. It's all about the psychology. I lost weight years ago and it really helped me to learn how to measure weight in metric properly....because I was weighing food and because I knew Americans and Europeans, who when asking me how much I'd lost would need to know in lbs and kilos, of course most people here needed to know in stones/lbs.

By that logic we should measure weight loss in ounces or grams.

I lost four hundred and fifty three point seven nine grammes last week! sounds more impressive than losing a pound.

dudara

This is not really a Consumer Issue

Moved to After Hours

dudara