| Sue : |
Our body produces 80% of the uric acid and 20% is generated from diet.So if you can manage to have a lower purine content diet it will prevent further gout attack.My partner Peter has suffered from gout attack for a number of years.So I want to share some of our learning experience.
Two years ago, due to the frequent attack despite some diet control, Peter started taking Allopurinol (referenced by Pony Ma). He was on it for a year, while it seems to help but now with better knowledge and experience he is able to control further gout attack by focusing on diet balance.So far, it is working without medication.If your attack is frequent and severe, you may have to consider going on medication while you adjust your diet accordingly.But no medication can fully protect you from gout attack if you have a high purine diet.
The best way to avoid a gout attack is to consume food with less/lower purine content.If you manage to keep a good balance, you can pretty well eat a bit of everything.Think of it like a quota, if you decide you would like to have wine with dinner, then you would not order seafood for your meal.If you eat everything moderately and avoid high purine content food (eg. Clams, asparagus, etc) then you lower the risk of a gout attack.
Generally people with gout are to avoid seafood, but fish is better than shelf fish. Usually salt water (sea) fish is supposed to be better for us but for those with gout, fresh water fish is preferred. Amongst seafood the purine content also varies, for eg. Clam has the higher (in fact the highest) purine content as compare to shrimp or fish. While you can eat fish, it should be moderate, avoid Sardine. Sardine is a very healthy fish especially for cancer prevention diet but it is very bad for people with gout. General rule of thumb is to eat fish with scale and avoid those without. And don’t drink (especially if you are going on medication). If you must choose, take wine over beer. Beer is to avoid at all cost due to the yeast content. Arguably, bread is not good for you because of the yeast and the gluten, but then if consumed in moderation portion, it is fine.
As you read about gout diet, it can get pretty confusing. It took us a while to understand why some books said you can eat tofu but no soya milk. What we learn is that in the process of making tofu, most of the purine content is left behind in the water/juice and so you can consume some tofu but soya milk has a high purine content so it’s best to avoid (the purine content is retained in the soya milk/juice). Same logic that people with gout should not have打邊爐 or老火湯 the water/soup has all the purine when the meat or other ingredients are cooked in the water. The interesting thing is that you cannot drink the soup but you can eat the meat that is cooked in the soup. This is because when the meat is cooked, all the purine of the meat has gone into the soup. I know it sounds so convoluted, but with real experiment with Peter, it is proven to be true. Despite being a 老火湯 lover, he would not drink any to avoid the painful attack. Another interesting thing is that you can have the quick cook soup (滾湯) and quick cook vegetable soup is best. The good old Chinese tradition of having 老火湯 is now debated if it is good for us or bad for us. I think if you are healthy and don’t have negative impact on food or soup, then there is no reason to change and able to maintain and enjoy what you are used to. But if you learn it the hard way that you have to suffer with pain, then the personal choice would become obvious. I remember when my late husband was battling cancer, our 中醫 also told him to stop having 老火湯. If you are a 老火湯 lover, then it may be hard to give it up and you may try to settle with 滾湯 . But I would strongly suggest that you avoid 打邊爐 and don’t drink the 湯 in soup noodle especially 雲吞麵 as it is made with a fish that has high purine content and sometimes they also put shrimp shells for flavour. Avoid eating中式素食(齋) most of them are made of soya or gluten and for flavor are cooked with a soup base or seasoning that is made with 冬菇或冬菇丁. Since I love vegetarian and have no idea that it is bad for Peter who has gout. It took us a few bad experience to realise.
I am by no mean know much but I just want to share what we learn over the last few years by reading and experimenting and from some pretty painful experience. And you may not be affected by some of what I said so you can decide to discard or simply use it as a reference. Just trying to share and help.
General Good Health:
The best way to avoid gout attack is to keep up your immune system, consume a balance diet with lower purine content. Two things I would strongly recommend for those with gout and for general health:
1.Drink plenty of water (we all heard about 8 glasses a day), it helps to flush/clear the system.
2.Try and eat less acid forming food as our immune system is at its best if we can keep a slightly alkaline balance. Meat is acid forming and most fruit and vegetables are more alkaline forming. But this doesn’t mean you can’t eat meat, just know everything is moderate. I have learned a little bit about Acid/Alkaline diet balance when my late husband was battling cancer.
Top hit list, the ‘bad’:
Clams (and most hard shelf fish)
Sardine
Red meat (eg. Beef)
Asparagus
Chinese Mushroom (but you can eat white button mushrooms as the purine content is much lower than Chinese mushrooms)
Gluten/Sweet Rice 糯米 (most people I know with gout is affected although some people are okay with it so you have to try it for yourself)
Soya Milk
Beer
老火湯
打邊爐 |