What Are Some Things Measured in Grams?
Dry food items, especially foods that can be poured into specific portions, are often measured in grams. A gram is a measurement of weight or mass within the metric system and can be used to measure anything from cars to water.
Items commonly measured in grams include flour, bread, oats and cereals, pasta, sugar, butter, chopped vegetables and honey or molasses. This measurement shows how much of the item is needed or included by weight, so consumers can properly understand its mass without thinking about size.
A paperclip weighs about a gram, therefore many items are measured in hundreds or thousands of grams. For larger, more massive items over 1,000 grams, a kilogram measurement is used. One kilogram equals 1,000 grams. Most scales use the metric system and report the weights of larger items, such as animals and humans, in kilograms. For example, a doctor weighs a patient in kilograms.
Grams are often written as “g,” which is then attached to a number, for example “300g sugar” may be seen in a cookbook recipe. In comparison, the American standard system measures items in ounces or tablespoons and cups, while the metric system instead uses grams for dry or weighted measurements. One ounce in the American standard system equals 28.34 grams.