Looking for meal ideas to help lower your uric acid and prevent gout? Here, you’ll discover healthy gout meal ideas for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.
Gout Diet Meal Ideas
First off, as gout sufferers, why do we have to bother at all about our diet?
Well, gout is a form of inflammatory arthritis caused by high blood uric acid — a condition called ‘hyperuricemia’ — out of which tiny needle-shaped crystals of monosodium urate can form in the joints and surrounding tissue.
And uric acid is the byproduct of the normal breakdown of natural chemical compounds in your body’s cells called ‘purines.’ These purines also exist in the cells of the food you eat. It’s reckoned that some thirty percent of the uric acid produced in your body comes from our food.
So gout sufferers like you and me are usually advised to move to a low-purine diet by completely avoiding/limiting certain foods, such as game, offal (organ meats), fatty red meats, seafood, and poultry.
As a result there’s a misconception that about all you can eat is cardboard! Well, as you’ll discover in the following gout meal plan, this isn’t the case at all. You can eat very well, and healthily, on a purine-restricted gout diet.
Consider these daily meal ideas for people like us with gout…
7 Day Gout Friendly Meal Plan
Notes:
All meat, poultry and fish used in a dish must be no more than 4 ounces per serving in order to get the right balance between their high nutritional value and moderately high purine content.
Cherries should be eaten everyday, as one of your allotted snacks, so you won’t forget to take them: studies have shown they are actually able to reduce uric acid. You can eat other fruits (e.g. orange, apple, pear, banana, kiwi fruit) outside of your designated snack times.
In some countries the main (biggest) meal of the day is lunch, whilst in others it’s dinner. Swap lunches and dinners to suit your culture.
Monday
- Breakfast: Fresh grapefruit then toast (2 slices max.)
- Morning snack: 1/3 cup of mixed almonds & sunflower seeds.
- Lunch: Mixed salad with cottage cheese and chives.
- Afternoon snack: 1 cup of fresh cherries.
- Dinner: Lean beef Irish stew.
- Late snack: 2 oatcakes.
Tuesday
- Breakfast: Porridge with low-fat milk, blackberries, chopped apples and cracked linseed, 1 tofu yoghurt.
- Morning snack: 1/3 cup of dried apricots.
- Lunch: 2 poached eggs on wholemeal toast, 1 potato scone.
- Afternoon snack: 1/3 cup of pecan nuts.
- Dinner: Grilled chicken breast with potatoes, carrots and parsnips.
- Late snack: 1 cup of fresh cherries.
Wednesday
- Breakfast: 1 large wedge of cantaloupe melon, 2 Ryvita wafers.
- Morning snack: 2 slices of wholemeal toast with jam.
- Lunch: 1 large baked potato with tuna, 2 oatcakes.
- Aternoon snack: 1 cup of fresh cherries.
- Dinner: Home made chicken curry with brown rice, pear.
- Late snack: 1/3 cup of mixed dried fruit and nuts.
Thursday
- Breakfast: Muesli with low-fat milk and a chopped banana.
- Morning snack: 1 cup of fresh cherries.
- Lunch: Tomato soup with a roll, 1 yoghurt.
- Afternoon snack: 1/3 cup of dried apricots.
- Dinner: Grilled wild salmon with potatoes, broccoli and carrots.
- Late snack: 2 oatcakes.
Friday
- Breakfast: Porridge with low-fat milk, ground cinnamon, and chopped banana, 1 natural Greek yogurt.
- Morning snack: 1/3 cup of pecan nuts.
- Lunch: 2 grilled kippers with grilled tomatoes and scrambled egg.
- Afternoon snack: 1 cup of fresh cherries.
- Dinner: Mixed vegetable casserole, rice pudding made with rice milk.
- Late snack: 2 slices of wholemeal toast.
Saturday
- Breakfast: Fresh fruit salad, soft-boiled egg with toast fingers to dip.
- Morning snack: 2 oatcakes.
- Lunch: Baked potato with cottage cheese and pineapple, slice of carob cake.
- Afternoon snack: 1/3 cup of mixed nuts.
- Dinner: Falafel with oven chips.
- Late snack: 1 cup of fresh cherries.
Sunday
- Breakfast: 2 slices of wholemeal toast with raw honey, a banana.
- Morning snack: 2 rice cakes.
- Lunch: Mixed salad, baked apple.
- Afternoon snack: 1 cup of fresh cherries.
- Dinner: Baked wild salmon with potatoes, broccoli and carrots.
- Late snack: 1 slice of carrot cake.
*Based on suggested menus in Christine Craggs-Hinton’s excellent book Coping with Gout published by Sheldon Press, London SW1P 4ST.
…so there you have it: 42 well-balanced gout meal ideas for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for a whole week.
*Postscript*
You can change things up by substituting other nutritious options, such as:
- Mashed avocado, chopped red onion & tomato, on toasted sourdough, topped with a poached egg.
- Peanut butter and sliced banana on one wholemeal toast slice.
- Turkey breast instead of chicken breast.
- Baked potato with 1 cup max. of sauteed mushrooms (they are moderately high in purines).
- Smoked haddock, grilled tomatoes and poached egg / scrambled eggs.
- Roasted red pepper risotto with brown risotto rice, vegetable stock, no wine.
- Baked or grilled hake with salsa verde and steamed vegetables.
- Wholegrain penne pasta with onion, garlic, red and yellow bell peppers, zucchini, dried Italian herbs, and fresh basil.
[BTW, there are tons more gout meal ideas in my Gout Rescue guide.]
Remember the meat, poultry and fish in these listings have to be restricted to a 4 oz serving, max, since they generally have a moderately-high purine content.
But what about pork?
Except in certain religious communities, pork is the most widely consumed meat, so is it safe to eat in a gout diet?…
It is, but only in moderation. However, there are several important health and moral issues being hotly debated which I cover in another article: Pork and Gout: Safe For Gout Sufferers?
