Pizza Sauce: why 228 g per cup is wrong
King Arthur Baking Ingredient Weight Chart publishes 228 g (8 oz) per US cup of pizza sauce. This site rejects that figure and publishes 252 g (8.9 oz) instead, from USDA SR Legacy "Sauce, pizza, canned, ready-to-serve" (FDC 172880) (density 1.0651 g/mL, matching the composition of the substance). The reason:
0.964 g/mL is lighter than water, but pizza sauce is water carrying about 13% tomato solids, sugar and salt, which are all denser than water, with only about 1% oil. USDA's composition for the same product (86.7% water) predicts about 1.05 g/mL, and every label that weighs a quarter cup gives 60-63 g. A quarter cup is 2 fluid ounces, and 57 g is 2 weight ounces: the fluid ounce read as a weight ounce, the same error as King Arthur's 29 g for 2 tablespoons of tomato paste.
The arithmetic
| Source | 1 cup | Density | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| King Arthur Baking Ingredient Weight Chart | 228 g8 oz | 0.9637 g/mL | Rejected on physics |
| USDA SR Legacy "Sauce, pizza, canned, ready-to-serve" (FDC 172880) | 252 g8.9 oz | 1.0651 g/mL | Published here |
The 227-gram pattern
The figure 227 is 8 × 28.35 — the conversion for weight ounces (avoirdupois). It is applied to volume in fluid ounces without going through the substance’s density. For a substance that happens to have a density of about 0.96 g/mL, the answer would be right; for water, milk, yogurt, cream, buttermilk, pumpkin purée, ricotta and evaporated milk, all of which are denser than water, it is wrong. The same number 227 appears on the King Arthur chart for every one of these ingredients, which is the signature of an arithmetic pattern rather than a measurement.
The full list of 227-gram rejections is on the corrections page.
The published figure and its sources
The full sourcing for pizza sauce, including every accepted and rejected figure, the state or filling method behind each, and the physics or standards reasoning applied, is on the ingredient page.
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