Many foods are usually marketed in grams.
The gram is a unit of mass that is part of the International System of Units . With the symbol g , the gram is equivalent to one thousandth of a kilogram . On the other hand, the gram is a unit of weight in the Decimal Metric System that is equivalent to the force exerted on a mass of one gram by the effect of gravity.
Taking into account that its definition is tied to the concept of the kilogram ( kg ), it is important to mention that the kilogram is the basic unit of mass of the International System. The kg is defined by a standard (an international prototype), and not by a physical characteristic.
Grams, equivalences, submultiples and multiples
One gram, in short, is equivalent to 0.001 kilograms . Its submultiples are decigrams , centigrams , milligrams and micrograms , among others. Its multiples, however, are units such as decagrams , hectograms , megagrams and gigagrams , in addition to the aforementioned kilogram.
The idea of gram is used to refer to the amount of something whose weight is precisely equivalent to one gram. If a person enters a store and orders 500 grams of chickpea flour, they are asking the seller to deliver an amount of this flour that has a weight of 500 grams.
The gram is a unit of mass.
Food marketing
It is common for many food products to be marketed in grams and for their price to also be expressed in this unit. Spices , for example, are usually sold in quantities of grams.
When the amount of product that is sold or used is very large, measured in grams, the kilogram or other multiples of this unit are used.
The gram in popular language
In popular language, since the gram represents lightness, we usually use this term to describe any object of low weight, or even to talk about people who are too thin. For example, it is possible to say "Marcelo weighs one gram" to refer to the fact that he is too skinny.
By convention, anything that weighs less than a couple of kilograms is considered light , since almost everyone can carry it without much effort. This leads us to use expressions that include the word gram to intuit or estimate the weight of something that we consider easy to carry.
The etymology
Regarding its etymology, we can say that the origin of the word gram is found in the Greek gramma . It is interesting to note that initially the meaning of this Greek word referred to a letter, and this is related to the concept of grammar ; It was only when it came to Latin that the meaning of "small stone used for weighing" was assigned to it. This expansion in the definition of the gram was not done arbitrarily, but rather arose after comparing the proportion between a small unit of weight and a large one with that of a single letter and the entire alphabet.
The case of the word element has a similar history: since the ancient Roman alphabet began with the letters L, M and N and that the Latin term for the alphabet was elementum , they began to use the word element to describe any basic principle, rudiment or fundamental part of a word, as fundamental as the alphabet itself.
Gram, a unit of mass
It is important to note that Spanish speakers often confuse the concepts of weight measurement and mass measurement . As explained in a previous paragraph, both the kilogram and the gram are two of the most common units of mass. Since weight is a force, newtons must be used to measure it.
Even the RAE dictionary mentions this confusion, but it continues to be present in popular language, largely due to the way in which food products are distributed, often classified according to their weight but making use of their mass.