Food Drive - Million Noodle March

[Dr. Otis Lansa]

Duke, any update on the ramen donation? The March continues past Holiday if necessary.... food banks generally need even more help after the holidays, since less people are in the charitable mood. I've also got direct approval of the Million Noodle March via PM from the True Prophet Bobby... expect to see something on the main page sooner or later.

[amenabletopasta]

Arrr! Me parrot Ragu be playing with 'is abacus, and 'e be reckoning Oi's donated 90kg o' cheese ter a Bolivian farmer.

Assumin' the farm-lubber be gratin' the cheese o'er the Holy Meal, do this be countin' towards the million noodles? If so, what be the conversion rate o' cheese ter noodle?

<Squwark!>
Somebody has given a pair of goats to a Bolivian farmer on our behalf. Presupposing that it's a Pastafarian farmer (who'll use all the milk produced to create cheese for the Holy Meal), I've made a number of dubious assumptions and calculated that the farmer can make 90kg of cheese in a year.

Parrots aren't exactly renowned for their mathematical skills, so (if you feel skeptical and/or inclined to check) here's how I arrived at the 90 kilo figure:

165,000,000 litres of milk makes 20,000 tonnes of cheese (according to Bega Cheese).

To make the sums easier, lets assume that our Bolivian farmer won't have quite such an efficient cheese producing method, so could make 16,500 tonnes (16,500,000kg) of cheese wth that much milk:

165,000,000 litres of milk = 16,500,000kg

So, 10 litres of milk = 1kg cheese.

According to Mother Earth News one doe goat will produce an average of 3 quarts of milk for ten months of the year. If we round the quart (0.946352litres) up to a litre, and say 3 months equates to 300 days, and we assume that Bolivians don't have a method for extracting milk out of a male goat, that's:

3 litres of milk a day for 300 days
= 900 litres of milk
= 90kg of cheese!
<Pieces of Eight!>

Avast! Me thanks t' Ragu fer that incredibly borin' explanation...

[Alpaca]

3 months equates to 300 days? Not 90?

[darren996]

He must be using a lunartic calendar...

[amenabletopasta]

3 months equates to 300 days? Not 90?

Avast! Me parrot meant "10 months equates to 300 days" Garrr! The blasted thing be a constant source o' shame ter me - not only be 'e talking landlubber style, but 'e be also talking rubbish!

<Squwark!>

<Pieces of eight!>

[Alpaca]

Methinks he's pretty talented, either way. Not many parrots can do smilies.

[Dr. Otis Lansa]

An update please, Thermometer Keeper!

[Alpaca]

Updated... and it's significant!

[Griffin]

Unable to resist the Great Appeal at the top of this page, I be sadly contemplating the plight of persons lacking Noodles. Maybe 2 wasn't enough. I am generously donating another Noodle. At great cost to myself as stocks are running low.

[Dr. Otis Lansa]

Ah, Griffin, I was meaning to ask you the volume of sauce contributed, so we can tally the noodle equivalent. Probably 1 ml = 1 noodle? We need experimental evidence of how much sauce it takes to cover a noodle.

I know 8 oz. volume of sauce (pre-reduction) generally works for 11 oz. of cooked spaghetti. What this converts to in pre-cooked noodles, I don't know.

[Griffin]

Ah, Griffin, I was meaning to ask you the volume of sauce contributed, so we can tally the noodle equivalent. Probably 1 ml = 1 noodle? We need experimental evidence of how much sauce it takes to cover a noodle.

I know 8 oz. volume of sauce (pre-reduction) generally works for 11 oz. of cooked spaghetti. What this converts to in pre-cooked noodles, I don't know.

Odd you should mention sauce, I have just fallen over a jarful, so as it is slightly damaged I'm donating that as well as that extra noodle.

As to the comparative question. Luckily I kept my old Imperial Weights and Measures Chart. 28.413 ml = 1 fluid oz. so thats an easy conversion. But. I believe we should be working in base units of the old Galleons per sackful of Noodles. That's 160 fl.oz. to the Galleon as I remember. So, 4,560.08 ml is required. By steady reckoning on the weight of a sackful, you can obtain the per noodle figure. A one hundredweight sackful may be the best for shoulder hoisting. Giving 2,508.8 oz. per sackful and therefore 228.073 oz. portions (rounded up) of noodles. Extrapolating from this we can deduce that 1824.582 ml (rounded up) of sauce is needed per sackful. Measured this way it becomes apparent that pre-/post- cooking can be eliminated and the per noodle sauce figure should be as you say 1 ml per noodle.

I have confirmed this by experiment, although I had difficulty extracting the spring onions which were surplus to requirement. I used the old pot boiler and a large dose of salts (although we must assume that salts may not be available to all recipients). With the pot balanced on the yard arm over a burning coal, 1 noodle was 15/16 " covered in less than 1 second on the digital timer. The coating was then verified by the lick and spit method.

Given that the recipients will be delighted to receive anything at all, I believe we could reduce coverage by a further 3/16 " and rely on natural wastage. This brings the sauce equivalent contributed value so far to 511.434 ml. Or in other words, we need more sauce.

[Alpaca]

So, do we call that 511 noodles?

I dunno... seems kinda unfair.

Maybe just a standard jar = a standard packful?

[Dr. Otis Lansa]

I'd be curious to see how much sauce is needed for a given size pack of noodles, but it seems to me (using approximations in all measurements) that a 500 mL or 1 pint container of sauce should be approximately equivalent to a 500 g or 1 lb pack of noodles, and should scale up (I think the larger containers of sauce are about 946 mL and should be roughly equivalent to a 900 g pack of noodles).

Prices over here suggest that sauce costs more, but it seems to me more sauce is necessary for proper noodle coverage.

Alternatively, we set sauce and cheese goals, and track separately, but I like doing noodle equivalents.

[Disco]

I did 2 hours of service to a Food drive that involved pasta.

Does that count?

[Dr. Otis Lansa]

Sure it does! We need to set a standard for hourly volunteering, though.... anyone have input on this?