Question

When you dry mushrooms, they lose 72% of their weight. What weight of fresh mushrooms do you need in order to get 12.25 lb of dried mushrooms?

Answers

GPT-4o mini
To find the weight of fresh mushrooms needed to obtain 12.25 lb of dried mushrooms, we can set up the following equation based on the information that the mushrooms lose 72% of their weight when dried.

1. If mushrooms lose 72% of their weight, it means that 28% of the fresh weight remains after drying.
2. Let \( x \) be the weight of the fresh mushrooms. Then, after drying, only 28% of \( x \) will remain:

\[
0.28x = 12.25
\]

3. To find \( x \), we can solve the equation:

\[
x = \frac{12.25}{0.28}
\]

4. Let's calculate:

\[
x = \frac{12.25}{0.28} \approx 43.75
\]

Thus, you need approximately **43.75 lb** of fresh mushrooms to get 12.25 lb of dried mushrooms.