How many pounds of Brussels sprouts should you purchase if you want to serve five trimmed sprouts to each of 200 guests?

To determine how many pounds of Brussels sprouts you need to purchase, we can follow these steps: 1. **Calculate the total number of Brussels sprouts needed**: - Each guest will receive 5 trimmed Brussels sprouts. - There are 200 guests. Therefore, the total number of Brussels sprouts needed is: \[ \text{Total sprouts} = \text{Number of guests} \times \text{Sprouts per guest} = 200 \times 5 \] 2. **Calculate the total number of Brussels sprouts**: \[ \text{Total sprouts} = 200 \times 5 = 1000 \] 3. **Determine the weight of Brussels sprouts**: - Typically, 1 pound of Brussels sprouts contains about 12-15 sprouts. For this calculation, we can use an average of 13 sprouts per pound. To find out how many pounds are needed, we can use the formula: \[ \text{Pounds needed} = \frac{\text{Total sprouts}}{\text{Sprouts per pound}} = \frac{1000}{13} \] 4. **Calculate the pounds needed**: \[ \text{Pounds needed} \approx \frac{1000}{13} \approx 76.92 \] 5. **Round up to the nearest whole number**: Since you can't purchase a fraction of a pound, you should round up to the nearest whole number. Therefore, you will need to purchase 77 pounds of Brussels sprouts. In conclusion, you should purchase **77 pounds** of Brussels sprouts to serve five trimmed sprouts to each of the 200 guests.