December 3, 2007

I'm big enough to admit when I've been misinformed

my actual 1/2 teaspoon full of rice = 100 grains

So I got a comment today on my recent how many grains of rice in a cup? post:
Anonymous said...

Um... 100 grains of rice = LESS than HALF a TEAspoon.

Your estimate of 1000 in a cup is completely incorrect.

My original post said that there were "approximately 1,000" grains of rice in a cup. I found this "fact" on wiki.answers.com. I'm not sure where the original editor found their info but it was clearly wrong, as my commenter pointed out. The original "answer" has since been updated (to 7,200 grains) and now includes a note about http://www.freerice.com/. But, so as not to be led down the primrose path by yet another wiki, I did some actually counting and calculating of my own before making this post.
When I got home from work today I pulled out a bag of rice (specifically Tropico Extra Super Quality Jasmine Scented Rice) and scooped 1/2 teaspoon then proceeded to count approximately 100 grains of rice. Now let's do a little math:

3 teaspoons = 1 Tablespoon therefore 1 Tablespoon of rice = 600 grains

16 Tablespoons = 1 cup therefore 1 cup = 9,600 grains.

So it seems that even the updated answer on wiki. answers.com is questionable. I guess this might also vary on the type of rice grains you're counting or weighing, as they did. Basmati rice for example has larger grains than regular white rice.

So @ my commenter: Good on ya. You were approximately right. And right to point out my mistake. But how about a little less attitude next time? I mean really. I was just doing a good Samaritan deed here. Passing on the word. Feeding hungry people.

BTW, thanks for reading my blog. :^)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Jasmine is a long grain rice, so it will require less rice to make a cup. Here in Sri Lanka (which is probably a recipient of the free rice) the rice is very short and thus, will require additional grains to make a cup. Not to mention that a serving of rice here is an obscene amount. I don't even want to think about how many words I have to get correct to be one serving of rice in Sri Lanka. Let's just say my current 2800 grains is not getting me anywhere.

Unknown said...

yeah, 1 cup of uncooked rice is a lot for one person to eat :) but regardless you can knock out 7000 grains in not too long on the site :)... oh and just as an update, you now get 20 grains for each correct answer vs the previous 10... twice as many for twice the amount of ppl! thanks for spreading the word about the site... such a simple thing that with the amt of ppl doing it is definitely an accomplishment :)