You need to make an inequality. You know 5 pounds will serve 14 people but you don't know how much you need to serve 49 people so you need to set up the equation [tex] \frac{5}{14} * \frac{x}{49} [/tex] . You then cross multiply to get [tex]14x=245[/tex]. Finally you divide 14 on both sides to get x=17.5 lbs of pasta salad