I posted the question below last week and while it was answered, thank you, I am still unclear about my original question of how do I know what is considered the NEW value and what is considered the ORIGINAL value.

I understand there is a change, yes, but how do I put it in the correct order in the formula, because sometimes it will equal a negative percentage.

Thank you so much for clarifying for me so I can understand!

I am doing a project for math class and it is asking for the relative change. In our book, the formula is relative change = new value - original value/original value.

The project is we look up nutritional values of items at a restaurant and then we have to estimate values based on calories of fat, carbs and protein.

What I'm having trouble with understanding is this: what is considered my new value and what is considered my original value?
I have the value provided by the restaurant and I have the value I calculated.

Thank you.

you have a change, right?
Suppose you change from 6 to 10
The actual change is 10-6 = 4
The relative change is thus 4/6 or 67%
That is, 6 was increased by 2/3 of its value

4 answers

eh? Clearly
the ORIGINAL value is what you start with
the NEW value is what you end with
I guess? I'm sorry to appear to dumb ... that is not obviously clear to me. That would make sense if I was losing weight or something like that, but in this particular situation, I have obtained values from the internet for nutritional values and also calculated values based on how many grams in fat, protein and carbohydrates. I haven't started or ended with anything.
you talk about a change
you have to start somewhere and end somewhere, with the change in between.

if you are losing weight, you weigh yourself today
you weigh yourself next week to see whether you have lost any weight, right?

So, if to day you weigh 125 and next week you weigh 118, then you have lost 7 lbs.
The actual change is -7
Now, the % change is what fraction of your original weight (today) was lost to arrive at your next checkpoint.
You lost 7 of 125 lbs, or 7/125 = 0.056 = 5.6%
That is, you lost 5.6% of your current weight.

Now, if your 50-lb dog lost 7 lbs, that could indicate a serious problem, since it represents 14% of its body weight

Whenever you hear statistics like the growth rate of 2.5% in the economy, that percentage figure is used to indicate the relative change is.

A gain of $1,000 may be very significant for a local business, which only made $5000 profit last year. That's a 20% increase

But for a city government with a budget of $50,000,000 that $1000 change is chump change. 1000/5000000 = 0.002%, a very tiny amount when compared with the total.

Actual change is very different from percent change.
Yes, I understand what you are talking about, but these are examples of changes. This project that I am working on is about nutritional facts -- the only changes are what is showing on the internet and what I am coming up with based on number of grams of fat, protein and carbs, for example, so I don't see what is considered "original" and what is considered "new", my very first question.