Someone posited that:
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100 lbs of potatoes, 99% water (by weight), means that there's 99 lbs of water, and 1 lb of solids. It's a 1:99 ratio.

If the water decreases to 98%, then the solids account for 2% of the weight. The 2:98 ratio reduces to 1:49. Since the solids still weigh 1 lb, the water must weigh 49 lbs.
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100 lbs of potatoes, 99% water (by weight), means that there's 99 lbs of water, and 1 lb of solids. THIS IS TRUE
If the water decreases to 98%, then the solids account for 2% of the weight. The 2:98 ratio reduces to 1:49. Since the solids still weigh 1 lb, the water must weigh 49 lbs. THIS IS NOT TRUE. The solid still weighs 1 lb, that’s true…what’s NOT true is that the solid is now 2% of the 100lbs…IF 99% equaled 99lbs, how could you possibly think that 98% equaled 49lbs? You’re saying that 100lbs of potatoes dried out a little, and lost HALF their weight?

So, let’s think about this….
If a potato is 99% water, then 100 lbs of potatoes contains 99 lbs of water and 1 lb of other material. For the potatoes to dry down to 98% water, we’ll need to understand that the solid portion still weighs 1 lb, but the 99 lbs of water is going to decrease…
The 1 lb of solid material remains, but the moisture content is reduced from 99% to 98%.
So the question is, if 99% equaled 99lbs of water, what does 98% weigh?

Which can be expressed as 99pct/99 lbs = 98pct/x lbs, cross multiply and we get 99x = 98 x 99, which equates to 99x=9702, which is expressed as x=9702/99, which equals 98… as in 98 lbs. And we still have our 1 lb of solid material, so our slightly drier potatoes now weigh in at 99 lbs instead of their previous 100 lbs!