subject: 3 Things Not To Eat With Gout [print this page] Avoiding certain foods can help to reduce gout symptoms and prevent further attacks. Here you'll learn why, plus, a list of 3 things not to eat if you have gout.
People with gout usually have high uric acid levels in their blood which forms crystals in joints and surrounding tissue. So, to help reduce the symptoms and prevent further gout attacks sufferers need to lower their uric acid levels. One way to do this naturally is through diet...
Why diet? Uric acid is a byproduct of the natural breakdown of purines during your body's metabolizing process. Purines are chemical compounds in our cells and the cells of animals and plants. So they also exist in our food at varying levels depending on the food type.
As you've seen above purines produce uric acid and uric acid produces crystals which cause gout. So, one way to reduce uric acid is to reduce the amounts of high and very high purine food that we eat.
There's a whole range of these, but perhaps the most important foods not to eat with gout are the following...
3 THINGS NOT TO EAT WITH GOUT
Don't eat organ meat, sometimes called offal. These are all the internal organs, so don't eat things like liver, kidneys, brains, heart, tongue, tripe nor sweetbreads. These have very high purine content.
Avoid game because it's very high in purines too. Game is the term given to any animal killed for its meat but which is, generally speaking, not raised on a farm. Game includes such things as deer, wild boar, rabbit, squirrel, pheasant, quail, woodpigeon, woodcock, goose, duck, partridge, wild turkey, and so on.
And don't eat certain types of fish nor shellfish which have high purine levels. The fish are things like sardines, anchovies, herring, mackerel, fish roe. And don't eat shellfish such as lobster, langoustines, shrimp, prawns, mussels, clams, scallops, etc.
Now, it's true that not all gout patients react in the same way with each of these foods. For example, some people can eat shrimp without triggering an attack, while others will have one, and so on throughout the list. This is because everyone's metabolism is different.
However, in general terms, these are the foods that raise the risk of gout and so are the things not to eat if you are a sufferer. What many people do is keep a daily food diary to identify which of these foods trigger a gout episode. They are then able to put together a gout diet plan tailored to their own metabolism.
