Category: Health

A 21st Century Approach to UK Peaks

Walking has never been so attractive. It’s cheap, it keeps you fit and it gets you away from the crowds. Yesterday’s launching of a new interactive website on Ben Nevis draws together for the first time a UK-wide peak challenge and a wealth of information for hill walkers. Continue reading “A 21st Century Approach to UK Peaks”

Dual unit weighing scales can be harmful to health – official

In a damning report on the state of medical weighing equipment and procedures in hospitals across the country, LACORS, the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services, has highlighted the dangers of using weighing equipment that can display units other than the standard metric units which are used for calculating medication and radiotherapy dosages, diagnosing illnesses and monitoring treatment.

Continue reading “Dual unit weighing scales can be harmful to health – official”

End Britain’s Great Imperial Rip-Off

In these uncertain times, the spending power of the pound in our pockets seems to be decreasing by the day, making it high time, in my view, to end the Great Imperial Rip-Off, and save British consumers from the cost of maintaining imperial weights and measures.

Continue reading “End Britain’s Great Imperial Rip-Off”

Twother or twaddle?

One area where metric units have been banned in the UK is draught beer and cider. This is despite the fact that bottled or canned beer and cider is mainly available in round metric quantities. Compared with most countries the restriction of draught beer measures to pints, half pints and third of a pint is very narrow. Recently it was reported that the National Weights and Measures Laboratory has included a proposal for a two thirds of a pint beer measure – the twother – to be introduced. Continue reading “Twother or twaddle?”

No Olympic games without measurement

Accurate and consistent measurement is fundamental to modern life, and in few branches of human activity is it more important than in sport – including, of course, the Olympic Games. This is the message given by Andrew Wallard, the President of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) to mark World Metrology Day (article suggested by Martin Vlietstra).

In his message Professor Wallard argues that “Our motto for 2008, “No Games without Measurement,” may be stating the obvious but we all know that measurement is important to nearly all aspects of society. So let us use [World Measurement Day] to press our message home to a particular group of people with whom we may normally have little contact, in the hope that they will appreciate what we do for them! Let us all hope they may go on to appreciate the importance of good measurement in its broadest contexts in our world.” If only.

Unfortunately, many British people (including many journalists) are non-numerate when it comes to measurement. Probably the most important reason for this is the fact that we try to muddle through with two incompatible systems of measurement, often making inaccurate conversions and failing to grasp the meaning of reported dimensions. Thus, journalists measure height in “double decker buses”, length in “football pitches”, and use “the size of Wales” as a unit of area. Meanwhile the NHS has invented a new unit of measurement for alcohol imaginatively called … the “unit”!

This reluctance to use the obvious measurement units (in these examples, metres, square kilometres and centilitres) is partly the result of the Government’s policy of teaching metric units in school maths and science lessons while maintaining imperial units for much of everyday life outside the school gate. In practice, in order to function effectively in modern Britain, people need to understand both metric and imperial units – yet many do not have a secure grasp of either. Hence the resort to physical comparisons and disguising metric units with new names.
Professor Wallard’s message can be read in full on the BIPM website at this link.

Also of interest on the BIPM website are the links to the following factsheets issued on World Metrology Day:

Distance
Height
Mass
Pressure
Speed
Substance
Time
Traceability

(NB: Copyright on these factsheets rests with BIPM and its partners)
Notes:

  1. World Metrology Day was 20 May – the anniversary of the signing of the Metre Convention in 1875, which the UK signed up to (late, of course) in 1884. The official text of the Convention is in French, but an English translation can be read on the US Metric Association website at this link.
  2. Andrew Wallard, Director of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) studied Natural Philosophy (Physics) at St Andrews University where he was awarded his PhD. He subsequently worked at the National Physical Laboratory and at Whitehall in the Department for Trade and Industry before taking up the deputy directorship of the BIPM under fellow-Briton, Prof Quinn. After Prof. Quinn retired, Wallard was appointed director of the BIPM.

The stone – now comes with a health warning

The Local Authority Coordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS) have recently announced that they are launching a nationwide project to deal with inaccurate hospital weighing scales. The project follows studies which found hospital staff using inaccurate and unsuitable scales to calculate dosages of medication for patients.

Continue reading “The stone – now comes with a health warning”

Spain to wreck European clothing sizes initiative?

According to a BBC report the Spanish government is proposing a new clothing sizes initiative which conflicts with the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) proposal described in Metric Views last year. If this report is true it threatens to undermine the progress that had been made toward a Europe-wide sizing system for clothes.

The BBC report can be accessed from this link. And the CEN proposal was described in Metric Views here.

According to the report, the reasoning behind the Spanish proposal appears to be that mannequins and models are too thin and as a result women risk their health by striving to lose weight in order to be able to wear the clothes seen on the catwalk and in the shop window. This may well be a serious problem, but it is difficult to see how changing the sizing system will solve it.

The European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) is a private sector body independent of the European Union. The great advantage of its proposal (known as EN 13402) is that it is based on the dimensions of the customer â?? not on an ideal model that the clothes are designed to fit. So provided that the customer knows her bust, waist and hip sizes, she should be able to find the â??best fitâ?? garments. This contrasts with the current systems in which a size 12 in one shop will be a size 14 in another shop and will not necessarily have the same relationship between bust and hip.

Much of the problem stems from the obvious fact that people vary in shape as well as in size. Consequently, a single number cannot adequately describe the person a garment is intended to fit. EN 13402 allows for this by giving two or more dimensions in the form of a pictogram, whereas (if the BBC report is correct) the proposed new Spanish system will simply repeat the same mistake. Ironically, the Spanish proposal appears to be duplicating a survey carried out by the British Standards Institution and other European standards organisations that was the basis for EN 13402.

The relevance of all this for UK metrication is that EN 13402 is based on dimensions in centimetres. It would be a great advance if British consumers could be persuaded to remember their dimensions in cm, but it was feared that the British retail industry and clothing importers might resist it precisely because it would require women to remember, say, 96-82-100 rather than 38-32-40.

If Spain really does go it alone, it will be even more difficult to achieve a common system throughout Europe.

Enjoy a healthy Christmas turkey! Roast for 40 minutes per kg at 190 °C

Many families in the UK will roast a turkey on Christmas day. Preparing a traditional Christmas dinner challenges most people as they are cooking much larger quantities of food than normal. As a result thawing and cooking times are much longer than normally experienced. Failure to thaw or roast properly may lead to food poisoning which is one of the worst things that could happen at Christmas.

Food Poisoning Risk

It is a frightening prospect that 20% of food poisoning cases are poultry related and an estimated 10 million turkeys will be prepared for Christmas in the UK. Although most incidences of food poisoning are not reported, 4 000 Britons reported food poisoning in December 2002. Preparing a traditional Christmas dinner challenges most people as they are cooking much larger quantities of food than normal. As a result thawing and cooking times are much longer than normally experienced. Food poisoning is caused by bacteria and may arise from:

  • Inadequately cooked meat due to not thawing the turkey correctly
  • Inadequately cooked meat due to not roasting sufficiently
  • Cross contamination of bacteria from raw meat
  • Failing to chill leftovers that are retained for later use.

Use kg-based Thawing and Roasting Times

The first two problems can be solved by proper calculation of thawing and roasting times. Now that turkeys in the UK are sold in kilograms, the UK Metric Association says it makes sense to give thawing and cooking times in hours and minutes per kilogram respectively. Unfortunately many products and cookery books give guidelines in minutes per lb/450g. Since turkey weights are labelled in kilos, this means that a cook either has to convert with a calculator or re-weigh the turkey in pounds. As turkeys are often too heavy for kitchen scales it is difficult for consumers to reweigh birds unless they use bathroom scales – which is hardly hygienic! Kilogram-based thawing and cooking times are easily worked out from the turkey’s label.

Thawing Times

Thawing times depend on the temperature of the place used to thaw the bird. Thawing in a refrigerator (usually around 4 °C) is recommended, however many fridges are already full around Christmas time. Alternatives are to thaw in a cool room or even room temperature.

  • For thawing in a fridge at 4 °C, UKMA recommends allowing 12 hours per kilo. Thus to thaw an 8 kg turkey allow 4 days.
  • For thawing in a cool room at 15 °C, UKMA recommends 7 hours per kilo; so 56 hours for an 8 kg turkey.
  • For thawing at room temperature at 20 °C, UKMA recommends 2 hours per kilo; so 16 hours for an 8 kg bird.

Obviously your fridge or room may have a different temperature to those listed so you may need to allow more or less time than quoted.

Turkey Hygiene

Other tips for preparing the turkey:

  • Do not wash the turkey – that risks spreading bacteria! – roasting not washing will kill the bacteria.
  • Check the inside cavity for ice crystals at the end of thawing. If ice is still there, you need more time for thawing.
  • Avoid cross-contamination by keeping the raw turkey separate from other foods and dishes.
  • Avoid cross-contamination by carefully washing hands, knives, boards and utensils that have been in contact with the raw bird.

Roasting Times

For roasting, UKMA recommends roasting for 40 minutes per kg at 190 °C, Gas 5 – thus an 8 kg bird will take 320 minutes (5 hours 20 minutes). Fractions of kilos are also easy to calculate by allowing 10 minutes for each additional ¼ kg, so an 8.25 kg requires 5 hours 30 minutes. Check the meat is cooked by parting the skin between the leg and breast. If it is still a little pink then allow an extra 20 minutes on top of your calculated time. Juices should run clear not pink.

More Tips

Other useful tips for a perfect roast turkey on Christmas Day:

  • Check your oven is large enough if you intend cooking a big bird, and buy a special turkey roasting pan.
  • Turkeys are heavy so take care when lifting in and out of the oven.
  • Smear the breasts with olive oil or softened butter and protect the breast with butter papers or foil. Or, work your hands between the skin and flesh of the breasts and slide in large wedges of soft Brie.
  • For a tasty attractive finish sprinkle the turkey with ground paprika and crushed thyme before cooking.
  • For hygiene reasons, don’t stuff the body cavity. Instead lift the neck flap and press your stuffing up against the wishbone.
  • Never carve a bird straight from the oven. Allow it to stand for at least 20 minutes. It won’t lose heat if you cover it loosely with a foil “tent”. This also allows you to get your roast potatoes nice and crisp.
  • Chill leftover turkey as soon as it is cold and serve within 3 days. If serving hot in a sauce or as a curry, then reheat until piping hot.

Are imperial units natural? (and some useful rules of thumb)

One of the claims sometimes made by defenders of imperial weights and measures is that they are “natural”. The metric system (they may say) is all very well for science and technical matters, but for everyday life imperial units like the foot conform to the human scale and are more “natural”,  unlike the arbitrary metric unit, the metre. We examine this argument.

Continue reading “Are imperial units natural? (and some useful rules of thumb)”