Kaitlyn Bretoi

Case Study 12: Recipe Modification for Sodium Control 1

Elizabeth C. is a 42-year-old African-American woman in reasonably good health. Her mother has high blood
pressure and recently suffered a mild stroke. Elizabeth—who sometimes has her mother over for meals—has
decided to look more closely at the sodium content of the food she prepares for her family.
She is planning to prepare a casserole for her family and looks up the sodium content in milligrams (mg) for the
main ingredients: 2 cups roasted chicken (120 mg per cup), 1 can cream of chicken soup (800 mg sodium per ½ cup
serving; 2.5 servings per can), 1 cup grated cheese (180 mg per ¼ cup), 2 cups frozen broccoli (40 mg per cup), 1
teaspoon salt (480 mg per ¼ teaspoon), and ¼ teaspoon each curry powder (0 mg) and pepper (0 mg).

1. According to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines mentioned in the chapter, what is the recommendation
regarding sodium intake for Elizabeth and her family?
For Elizabeth and her family, they should consume less than 1500 milligrams of sodium daily
considering they are African-American and there is family history of hypertension.

2. Assuming her recipe serves four, calculate the milligrams (mg) of sodium in one serving of
Elizabeth’s casserole.
One serving of the casserole would contain 1240 milligrams of sodium. The full casserole has
4960 milligrams of sodium.

3. How does this meal contribute to her family’s daily sodium goal addressed in question #1?
The one serving of casserole contains almost the whole days’ worth of recommend sodium, this
meal would be considered as too high in sodium for Elizabeth and her family. I would suggest
Elizabeth and her family to not consume this casserole. The family could have the meal if they
make sure to not consume much more sodium in the day.

4. Using the information in the “How To” feature in this chapter, what general changes might Elizabeth
make to decrease the amount of sodium in this recipe?
Elizabeth could change the 1 can of cream of chicken soup to one that has no sodium and she
could eliminate the extra salt in the recipe.

5. Assume that Elizabeth has found a lower-sodium soup for her recipe (528 milligrams sodium per
serving; 2 servings per can). Using this product and other changes you suggested in question #4,
revise her original recipe and recalculate the sodium content of one serving.
If Elizabeth changed her recipe to a lower-sodium soup one serving would contain 344 milligrams
of sodium.

6. Using information from this chapter, what other nutrition strategies might help Elizabeth plan meals for
her family that could help lower blood pressure?
Elizabeth could read all labels on food she buys to make sure they contain low sodium. Also,
keeping a diet filled with fresh foods with herbs and spices to flavor the food would create healthy low sodium foods
for Elizabeth and her family.

1
Contributed by Barbara Quinn.