1Cademy - Finding the Percent of Calories from Fat

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Finding the Percent of Calories from Fat

Apply the seven-step problem-solving strategy to a percent application in which the percent is the unknown.

Problem: Each gourmet brownie contains $480$ total calories, of which $240$ calories come from fat. What percent of the total calories is from fat?

Identify what to find: the percent of total calories that come from fat.
Name the unknown: Let $p$ = the percent (to be found first in decimal form).
Translate into a percent sentence and equation: "What percent of $480$ is $240$ ?" becomes

$p \times 480 = 240$

Solve by dividing both sides by $480$ :

$\frac{480p}{480} = \frac{240}{480}$

$p = 0.5$

Convert to percent form: $p = 50\%$
Check — $240$ is exactly half of $480$ , so $50\%$ is clearly correct.
Answer: Of the total calories in each brownie, $50\%$ come from fat.

This is a "find the percent" equation. The variable $p$ represents the unknown percent, which appears as a decimal coefficient multiplying the base. After dividing both sides by the base, the resulting decimal must be converted to percent form (move the decimal point two places to the right and attach $\%$ ) to answer the original question.

Updated 2026-04-21

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OpenStax Elementary Algebra

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