Cooking / Meal Preparation

You can use arithmetic daily in many settings. Here are some suggestions for how you can make up arithmetic story problems when cooking or preparing food. To see more suggestions for other contexts go to Use Arithmetic Everyday.

Cooking and preparing food provides an opportunity to ask questions about:

Amount of food:
How much food do we need?
How much food is leftover?

Servings:
How many servings does this amount of food provide?
How much food do we need for this number of servings?

Nutrition:
How many calories are there in this many servings of food?
How much food do we need to get this number of grams of ____?

Preparation time:
How long will it take to cook this amount?
Is this much time enough to cook this item?

Addition

If you ate 500 calories at breakfast, 700 calories at lunch, and 680 calories at dinner, how many calories did you eat today?

They ate 4 oranges, 3 apples, and 6 bananas. How many pieces of fruit did they eat?

It takes 45 minutes to bake this cake, and 10 minutes for it to cool. How long do we need to wait from the time we put it into the oven, until it is cool enough to serve?

Subtraction

Three people want milk and two people want orange juice. How many more people want milk than want orange juice?

We started with 50 cookies. If there are 8 cookies left, how many cookies were eaten?

You want to eat 1650 calories today. You have already eaten 920. How many more calories can you eat?

Multiplication

This recipe makes 4 servings. We need 8 servings, so we need to multiply all the items by 2. If the recipe calls for 3 eggs, how many eggs do we need to make 8 servings?

We need two slices of bread for each person and there are 8 people. How many slices of bread do we need altogether?

Allow 1 pound of meat per person. If we want to serve 7 people, how many pounds of meat do we need? At $2.50 per pound, how much will it cost?

It takes 20 minutes a pound to cook this 4 pound roast. How many minutes will it take altogether to cook it?

How many total pieces of silverware are on the table if all 5 guests have three pieces each?

You made 3 dozen cookies. How many cookies did you make?

Division

How many days will a bag of 100 napkins last if you use 5 each day?

This recipe is for 12 servings, and we only need to serve 3 people. What do we need to divide each ingredient by to make the right amount?

This package has 30 cookies. Can you share this equally with your group of 6 friends? How many will each of you get?

If you want to eat 2400 calories today, and you plan to eat 3 meals, about how many calories will you eat at each meal if you eat the same number of calories at each meal?

Multiple Operations

If one 8 ounce glass of milk has 150 calories and the same size glass of low fat milk has 90 calories, how many glasses of each do you need to drink to get an equal number of calories?

We buy a 40 pound bag of dog food every 20 days. If you have one dog, how may pounds of dog food does the dog eat each day? If you have two dogs, how many pounds of dog food do both dogs eat apiece each day?