A newspaper report shows about 10% of the meals prepared by Hospital X were wasted despite the hospital's stated goal...

Phase 1: Owning the Dataset

Visualizing the Information

Let's organize the hospital's meal data in a simple flow diagram:

Total Hospital Budget: $10,000,000
         |
         v
Total Meals Prepared: 400,000 meals
         |
         v
Wasted Meals: 10% = 40,000 meals
Cost of Wasted Meals: $200,000

Key Relationships

• 10% of meals were wasted
• Wasted meals cost $200,000 total
• Total budget was $10 million

Phase 2: Understanding the Question

We need to find:

1. Food waste as % of total budget: What percentage of the $10 million budget does the $200,000 in waste represent?
2. Average meal cost ($): What's the average cost of each wasted meal?

Breaking Down the Calculations

For the first part:

• We have: Waste cost = $200,000
• We have: Total budget = $10,000,000
• We need: (Waste cost ÷ Total budget) × 100%

For the second part:

• We need to find: Number of wasted meals
• Then: Average cost = Total waste cost ÷ Number of wasted meals

Phase 3: Finding the Answer

Calculation 1: Food waste as % of total budget

Percentage = \(($200,000 ÷ $10,000,000) × 100%\)

Let's simplify:

• \($200,000 ÷ $10,000,000 = 0.02\)
• \(0.02 × 100% = 2%\)

✓ Food waste represents 2% of the total budget

Calculation 2: Average meal cost

First, let's find how many meals were wasted:

• Total meals = 400,000
• Wasted meals = \(10% \text{ of } 400,000 = 0.10 × 400,000 = 40,000 \text{ meals}\)

Now we can find the average cost:

• Average cost = \($200,000 ÷ 40,000 \text{ meals}\)
• Average cost = $5 per meal

✓ Each wasted meal costs an average of $5

Phase 4: Solution

Based on our calculations:

• Food waste as % of total budget: 2
• Average meal cost ($): 5

These answers make logical sense: the hospital wasted 2% of its budget on food waste, with each wasted meal costing $5 on average.