In the UK petrol is more like $5.57 per US gallon (assumes £1.15 per litre) at current exchange rates.
So biofuels are far closer to be price competitive here.
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What happen in this case is that a too simple model is used. And no verification of the correctness of the theory is made.
Nutrition science is a complex thing and is oversimplified in media and how people understand it. And in this case isn’t missing the types of fats used, the fibre content, vitamin and other macronutrient balance.
Eat is not “fill the tank with fuel” but is more complex, and the pleasure of eating and preparing the meal has importance.
«Si tibi deficiant medici,medici tibi fiant haec tria:mens laeta, requies, moderata diaeta.»
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You should see the decoder ring needed for the various beer glasses in the different Australian territories. A pony in NSW is not the same as a pony in QLD. And don’t get me started on schooners!
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My money is on the Rockies. On the other hand, I am now picturing The Great Butter Stick Shape Divide between Twin Cities suburbs east of the Mississippi and Twin Cities suburbs west of the Mississippi.
The real cultural shock was bagged milk, though.
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If the US government were to eliminate the significant tariffs on ethanol imports from places like Brazil and also end the insane policy to enforce a minimum price for sugar grown in the U.S., that would help put biofuels in a much more competitive position than they are now. But we also need to increase gasoline taxes significantly (and require less-polluting blends such as what’s used in CA) and put that money towards infrastructure for a carbon-neutral future.
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So make flatbread.
While I agree that “fractions of a stick” is a really silly way to measure butter - still, we’re talking about cooking, not chemical engineering. You don’t need exactly stoichiometric proportions. Going much beyond one significant figure is generally unnecessary IMO.
(Incidentally, butter has about .95 x the density of water, so you can just use grams and milliliters interchangeably, whichever is most convenient for the quantities and tools you have on hand)
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Oh, but they already do! The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act has required that butter be labeled in both metric and customary units since 1992. And the US customary pound has in fact been defined in terms of the SI kilogram since the Mendenhall Order of 1893, so one pound of butter is defined as exactly 453.59237 g
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Baking is sometimes closer to the latter than the former.
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Having grown up in the Twin Cities back in the day, and my mom having shopped on both sides of the river, it was always sticks. Also only found sticks at the grocery in Ames, IA when I was in college, so the divide has to further west than the Mississippi River.
When I was a kid, bagged milk existed in Wisconsin, but not Minnesota. I’d be hard pressed to find it here in Michigan. I can get glass bottles if I feel like paying way too much for milk, though.
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I grew up in Michigan and lived in Wisconsin as an adult for twenty years; I never saw bagged milk until I moved to Toronto. And I’m barely old enough to remember milk delivery.
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I have made the acquaintance of a woman who is a precision formulary chemist by trade, and a amateur baker by hobby. She makes cupcakes for fundraisers and stuff like that.
She has uniformity locked down. Her cupcakes are, by any definition, perfect. Every. Single. Time. Her oven is regulated and calibrated. Her uniformity makes packaged baked goods look sloppy. It is astounding. Even the frosting and decorations are precise and standardized. Her tolerances have to be tight, and I have to believe she has figured out how to adjust for environmental conditions.
Oh, and they also happen to be absolutely delicious.
It is a joy and wonder to behold.
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We used to use imperial units, then saw the light in … the 1960s? Our blocks of butter are still sometimes referred to as pounds, although they’re actually 500g. Meh, 47g, or about 10% … that’s close enough for imprecise verbal communication.
And yes, the packaging is marked in even divisions …
… although that’s very much a guide. I use them sometimes if I don’t really care, or to get into the right ballpark, but if it matters I use scales.
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It’s not imprecision of language. In German at least (and I know the same is true in other European languages) a pound is now defined as the shorthand for 500g. So, many people (myself included) will say “a pound of mince, please” at the butcher’s and it is understood to be exactly half a kilo.
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We were on the right track until the Reagan administration. They even put up some street signs in kilometers in a few places! Alas.
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