What Chinese Food Can I Eat With Gout: Best 10 Gout-Friendly Chinese Food

What Chinese Food Can I Eat with Gout? If you’ve ever had gout, you know the pain too well. But there’s one other thing you might be wondering: can I eat Chinese food when I have gout?

To see if it would be a good idea for your diet, let’s take a look at what gout is and how it affects food. We’ll also look at what Chinese food is and let you know if gout would be a good idea for your gout diet.

What Is Gout?

Gout is a rare but very serious form of arthritis that causes pain and swelling in the joints, which can result in difficulty walking, stumbling, and other symptoms.

Though gout was once thought to be acute inflammatory arthritis secondary to purine metabolism deficiencies (which are quite common), modern research shows that it has no connection to purines at all.

In fact, a large number of people who have gout have normal blood levels for purines. It is a metabolic disease where something triggers an accumulation of uric acid crystals into the joint lining or tips the balance between production and excretion by the body in just the wrong way.

What Gout Does to Your Food?

So how does this relate to Chinese food? Well, with gout, the body can make too much uric acid, so if you are someone who eats a diet high in foods that encourage uric acid production, such as meats or grains (especially wheat), it can cause an attack of gout.

So when you have a gout flare-up, probably the first thing you’ll want to do is cut back on red meat and alcohol. You also want to be careful with some of your other favorite foods. While you can have some Chinese food, you might want to skip some of the more mouthwatering ones like:

What Chinese Food Can I Eat With Gout: Best 10 Gout Free Chinese Food

1. Stir Fry

Stir-fry is a quick and easy way to get your favorite Chinese dishes without worrying about a flare-up.

2. Noodles

Never worry about noodles when you have gout. The broth can often be the culprit when it comes to triggering gout, but with Chinese food, it is usually safe as long as you go for a noodle soup instead of one with sauce.

You can also avoid stir-fried noodles altogether by sticking to the plain kind (better yet – just eat rice or chicken)

3. All Chinese Soups

Because there is no sauce or broth to be concerned about, any Chinese soup that doesn’t contain meat can be safely eaten with gout.

4. All Starchy Foods

Some gout patients find that after a gout attack, their appetite drastically decreases, so to get their potassium and magnesium levels back in balance, they eat more fruits and vegetables. Starchy foods like rice, barley, and pasta are good choices because they are high in both of these minerals.

Rice alone should also be avoided during a flare-up as too much starch can cause further inflammation. If you can’t do without rice, brown is the healthiest choice.

5. All Vegetarian Dishes

If you are a vegetarian, then Chinese food will probably be your best friend when it comes to controlling that gout. The only thing to watch for is sauces made with soy sauce.

In addition, rich dishes like vegetarian chicken and seafood usually contain a lot of meat or seafood broth we mentioned above, so there’s no need to eat these during flare-ups.

6. Any Fresh Seafood

Fish is considered a great gout-fighting food because of its high levels of omega-6 fatty acids. When you eat fish, you can make sure you don’t eat too much salt by choosing the leanest types.

Because fish is usually pretty high in protein, it also helps keep you feeling full longer and prevents overeating that can trigger gout flares.

7. The Whole Family

With a little planning and the right recipes, the whole family can enjoy Chinese food together without ever getting a gout attack in the process.

Of course, if your family members have had gout before, limiting their intake of juice, alcohol and meat might also be wise.

8. All Vegetable Dishes

When it comes to vegetables, the key is actually avoiding the sauces that go with Chinese food. Rich sauces can trigger gout even if they don’t contain carbs. But some vegetables are good choices even if they do contain carb-rich sauces.

For example, tomatoes and even eggplant are better choices than the ones in a stir-fry dish because they don’t have as much sauce and can be eaten without worry.

9. Sushi & Sashimi

Sushi and sashimi are always a safe option for you to eat as long as you make sure you order your rolls and sashimi pieces away from the rice or rice ball in which it is served.

You can also choose to have a plain roll instead of a twice-cooked one and make your own roll. Otherwise, you can avoid the sauces and meats in all dishes with this type of food.

10. All Chinese Noodles

Noodles are not recommended when you have gout as they are known to be high in purine-rich broth, which is notorious for causing gout flare-ups.

But suppose you’re not going to eat meat or fish. In that case, there’s no excuse for eating pasta or other noodle meals because there are many other choices for Asian cuisine that don’t include these ingredients, like vegetarian noodles and especially egg noodles.

How to Maintain a Gout-Free Diet?

The best ways to maintain a gout-free diet are through keeping it simple and choosing from the above Chinese food-safe list of great choices. But if you already have gout and want to avoid the foods that trigger attacks, we recommend following a high-quality diet like the Arthritis Diet.

What Are the Foods I Should Avoid With Gout?

The above list of Chinese food safe for gout sufferers is one that you should easily be able to live with because it includes several delicious dishes like egg rolls, crab rangoon, and fried rice. But there’s another list of foods that you need to avoid if you have gout or are trying to avoid an attack. These include:

Foods and Drinks That Can Trigger Attacks:

1. Alcoholic Beverages

Alcohol is a definite no-no when you have gout because it can trigger attacks at any time, day or night. Wine is especially bad for gout sufferers. It’s already high in uric acid and can make a flare-up worse if you don’t know how to moderate your intake.

For example, drinking one glass of champagne or light beer daily instead of quenching your thirst and maintaining a healthy blood sugar level can trigger gout attacks. There are also different kinds of alcohol that are worse than others. Make sure you avoid the following:

2. Certain Drinks

Avoid drinks like tea and coffee during a gout attack because they are diuretics and will cause uric acid to be flushed from your body.

3. Soda

Drinks with high phosphoric acid like soda will also trigger gout. Diet soda seems to be worse.

4. Asparagus

This is another food you don’t want to eat if you have gout because it can cause many problems very quickly. It tends to trigger attacks pretty fast, and it’s not as easy to get rid of the pain after eating it as quickly as other triggers like alcohol might be.

So if you have been diagnosed with gout, just take this one off your shopping list or remove it from your recipe arsenal whenever you run out of ideas on preparing a healthy meal for your family.

5. Fresh Fruits & Fresh Vegetables

Gout can also be triggered by fresh fruits and vegetables. The most common trigger foods are lemons, melons, and citrus fruits like oranges.

If you have gout or are trying to avoid an attack, I recommend you eat your favorite fruit or vegetable only rarely during a flare-up.

6. All Meat & Seafood

As mentioned earlier, when cooking with meat and seafood, the key is to make sure there is no high salt content in the sauces that go with the dish and ensure there are no other high-salt foods in it.

This can be a problem when you eat in a traditional Chinese restaurant where the sauces might be high in meat broth, and there are other foods that are high in salts like egg rolls or fried rice. But as long as you follow this rule, you can have your favorite dishes from the above list.

7. Anything With Soy Sauce

Soy sauce is one food that shouldn’t be eaten if you have gout because it contains soy protein which is known to cause inflammation in people with gout.

8. Pickled or Fermented Foods

These foods can trigger gout because of the preservatives and high salt content.

9. Any Rich Sauces

When it comes to rich sauces, the key is to avoid anything that is high on protein like chicken or beef broth, lobster sauce, and oyster sauce because these can cause inflammation as well if eaten in high quantities.

This means you must be very careful with all Chinese food dishes that include these ingredients, especially the vegetable stir-fries that will most likely have them.

10. Anything High In Purine

The foods that have the most purine in them are seafood and meat, which can cause inflammation for you if you eat them in high quantities.

The Bottom Line

Chinese food is great if you have gout. You can enjoy it every day and still remain healthy. But as long as you don’t overdo the dishes, you can enjoy the foods that are on this list without any worries.

This Chinese food list will help you stay healthy and avoid extra pain if you do gout. Just make sure you follow the instructions and if you’re still not sure, then talk to your doctor or the expert, who can give you more advice on how to stay healthy with gout.

In the meantime, keep enjoying all the great dishes that are on this list, and don’t forget to check out these tips for a healthy diet for gout!