I am trying to read text in A1

1/4 cup

and convert it into two cells B1 and C1:

0.25 cup

Assuming the text above is in A1, when B1 is:

=VALUE(LEFT(A1,3)

is in B1 I get the result:

44200, which is the Excel code for Jan 4.

Can somebody please tell me how to fix this.