Scales For You

Have you ever wondered how much you should pack your flour or sugar into a measuring cup when baking?  You want your finished product to turn out just like Grandma’s, but how much did she pack her measuring cup?  Measuring cups can yield different results depending upon the density of the ingredient and how the cook packs it.

The Escali Pana scale solves this problem with accurate volume measurements in cups and tablespoons.   It is preprogrammed for precise volume measurement of more than 150 ingredients with five units of measure.   You can take advantage of technology that Grandma never dreamed about.  Buy yourself a volume measuring scale.

When I was growing up in West Tennessee, country general stores were plentiful.  We could walk to the local store where they stocked about anything you wanted or needed.  They had everything from fresh country eggs to kerosene for our lamps to overalls and flannel shirts.  We could even get the storekeeper to slice some balogna off the huge roll and fix us a balogna sandwich.  If we bought extra sliced balogna or cheese to take home, he would place it on an old set of spring scales to determine how much we owed.

A spring scale works by exerting force on the spring.  The distortion of the spring is proportional to the amount of force.  If the balogna or cheese slices were placed on the scale, the scale could determine their weight by measuring how far the spring was distorted.  It makes me want to buy a set of spring scales for my kitchen just to bring back those memories.  Pleasant memories are worth more than gold! 

Many female office workers are overweight due to sitting all day. And, it’s not just the middle-aged ones that are chunky; younger women office workers are also packing on the pounds. In a recent survey of office workers almost all the women reported they were overweight and unhappy with their current fitness level.

One of the most important things a woman can do is to take care of her body. One way to do this is by eating healthy. Avoid the snack machine and lard-laden baked goods. Another way is by exercising. To learn just how overweight you are use a body mass index scale. By understanding your body fat percentage you can get a better idea of how much your need to change your diet and increase your exercise level.

 The happiest people are healthy people. If you’re overweight you’re not healthy and your chances of an early death resulting from a heart attack, stroke or cancer increases.

Some people really have a hard time controlling the amount of food they put into their mouths. One way to begin controlling your meal portions is by using one of the newest food scales. These scales have aided many people in losing unwanted pounds of body fat.

The best way to start measuring your food is to prepare meals for the next day the night before. In the evening you will have more time to consider just how much an ideal portion is. But make sure not to prepare meals when you’re hungry. This will only lead to
larger portion sizes and snacking.

Have you heard the story about a farmer who was buying hammers for $6 each, then standing on the street and selling them for $5 each.  Someone asked him why he would sell at a loss.  His reply was, “anything beats farming.”

If you are one of the many people who sells items on ebay, you need a reliable shipping scale.  By making a picture of the item for ebay, packaging the item for shipping,  and then weighing it on a shipping scale, you can determine exactly how much you will need to charge your customer for shipping.  When the profit is relatively small, a mistake in shipping costs can, not only eat up your profit, but actually put you in the hole.   You’ll end up like the farmer selling hammers! 

The terms accuracy and precision are often confused.  Precision is the degree of reproducibility, or the degree to which further measurements or calculations show the same or similar results.   A measurement could be giving similar results without being accurate.  A measurement system is called valid only if it is both accurate and precise.

If a restaurant cook (or even a cook at home) wants his/her dish to taste and look the same each time it is prepared, the measurements and cooking methods will have to be precise.  Precision scales can help save time and make your favorite dishes repeatable.  With the Tare feature, the weight of the container can be subtracted, then the scale can be returned to zero after each ingredient is added.  The scales that measure liquids, as well as dry ingredients, will save time in clean up by eliminating the need for measuring cups and spoons.

I was not happy this morning when I stepped on the scales.  I have been thinking for some time that I needed to lose weight, but the scales definitely show I have gained instead.  If I don’t get serious about losing weight, I’ll need a new wardrobe.  The current state of the economy does not encourage me to spend unnecessary money.  If I eat less, that should save money on food; and if I lose enough to continue wearing my current wardrobe, I’ll have enough money to pay for a trip to the Smokey Mountains to see the colorful fall foliage.

I’m been involved with several eating plans in the past.  I know the healthy foods and portion sizes needed to lose weight, but I’ll need a pocket scale to take on my trip.  A handheld scale that will fit into my pocket will allow me to measure my portions in restaurants or at home.  Since I’ve always been taught to clean my plate, I’ll need to measure out the portions I will eat and immediately put the remainder into a carry-out box.  It’s very difficult (almost impossible) for me to leave food on my plate; but if I put it into a carry-out, I can leave it at the motel with no regrets.  Somehow, it doesn’t seem as wasteful and, anyway, it doesn’t look appetizing any more!

When working with precious metals such as gold and silver, the increments measured often need to be very small.  A pennyweight is a unit which is equal to 24 grains, or 1/20th of a troy ounce.  Jewellers use the pennyweight in the valuation of precious metals, and dentists and dental labs use it as the measure of precious metals in dental crowns and onlays. 

Since our economy has taken a huge downfall, many people are talking about gathering their old gold and silver jewelry and other items that aren’t being used and selling them.  I have even heard of home parties, where you take your items to a party in a friend’s home, have it weighed and evaluated, and collect the money that night.  A pennyweight scale is a necessity to people or businesses that are weighing precious metals.  These scales have many features that will make your job easier. 

Kitchen scales date back to the Victorian period.  The early scales were either balance scales or mechanical scales and were usually only found in the kitchens of wealthy homeowners.  By the 1950s, it became common to find a mechanical kitchen scale in almost every American kitchen.  The mechanical kitchen scale had a weighing pan on top of the scale and a large, circular face to show weights.

Although, you can still purchase the mechanical kitchen scale, technology has made some remarkable changes in scales that are available for home kitchen use now.  These electronic digital scales can replace measuring cups and spoons in the baking process.  Simply set your mixing bowl on the scales, subtract the weight of the container using the Tare feature, and reset the scale to zero after adding each ingredient.  A liquid measuring scale can save lots of time in your kitchen and make clean up faster.

To live a longer, healthier life, we need to develop our muscles instead of adding fat to our body.  Researchers now believe that potassium counters the effects of foods (meat, cereal grains, etc.) that create “acidic residues” in our body, promoting muscle wasting.  To neutralize the acidity, we need vegetables and fruits that become alkaline in the body.  Potassium is high in bananas, dried apricots, cantaloupe, potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, pumpkin, legumes, avocado, orange juice and tomato products.  Most of the time, muscle mass starts declining after age 50.  However seniors who ate lots of high-potassium foods typically had 3.6 more pounds of lean tissue mass than those who had half as much potassium. 

As we gradually change our lifestyle to a healthier one of eating the right amounts of the right foods and exercising regularly, we like to measure our progress.  A body mass scale or a body water scale will be helpful.  Either of these scales can help us determine to some degree how much muscle we are developing compared to other people of our height and weight.