High Purine Foods List: What to Limit and What to Track

When you receive a gout diagnosis, one of the first things you hear is to avoid high purine foods. That advice is not wrong, but it is incomplete. Purines from food account for only about one third of the uric acid your body produces. The rest comes from normal internal cell turnover. And the type of purine, the source it comes from, and what else you eat alongside it all influence how your body handles it.

This reference guide, part of our purine database, lists the foods with the highest purine content, organized by category, and provides context about which ones the research most strongly links to gout flares.

What Counts as “High Purine”

Foods are generally categorized as high purine when they contain more than 200mg of purines per 100g. Foods between 100 and 200mg per 100g are often classified as moderately high. For context, a typical serving of meat is 85 to 170g (3 to 6 ounces), so the per-serving purine load depends on both concentration and portion size.

Very High Purine Foods (Over 200mg per 100g)

These are the most concentrated purine sources in the diet. Research links these most strongly to elevated uric acid and increased gout flare risk.

Organ Meats

Food	Purine (mg/100g)	Typical Serving	Estimated Purines per Serving
Sweetbreads (thymus)	1,000+	100g	1,000+ mg
Liver (beef)	550	100g	550 mg
Liver (chicken)	520	100g	520 mg
Liver (pork)	500	100g	500 mg
Kidney (beef)	450	100g	450 mg
Kidney (pork)	400	100g	400 mg
Heart (beef)	250	100g	250 mg
Brain	200	100g	200 mg

Organ meats have the highest purine concentrations of any whole food. A single serving of sweetbreads can contain over 1,000mg of purines, which is more than most people consume from all other food sources in an entire day. These are the foods that the research most consistently links to gout risk.

High Purine Seafood

Food	Purine (mg/100g)	Typical Serving	Estimated Purines per Serving
Anchovies	410	45g (1 tin)	185 mg
Sprats	400	100g	400 mg
Sardines	345	85g (1 tin)	295 mg
Mussels	310	150g	465 mg
Herring	290	100g	290 mg
Mackerel (Atlantic)	245	100g	245 mg
Scallops	220	100g	220 mg

These seafood items are among the highest purine foods after organ meats. A single serving of mussels or sardines can deliver a substantial purine load.

Yeast Products

Food	Purine (mg/100g)	Typical Serving	Estimated Purines per Serving
Yeast extract (Marmite/Vegemite)	1,810	5g (1 tsp)	90 mg
Nutritional yeast	290	15g (2 tbsp)	44 mg
Brewer’s yeast	680	15g	102 mg

Yeast products have extremely high purine concentrations per 100g, but serving sizes are typically very small. The per-serving purine load is moderate. Beer is relevant here because it contains brewers yeast and is high in guanosine, a specific purine that is efficiently converted to uric acid.

High Purine Foods (100 to 200mg per 100g)

These foods are significant purine sources but at lower concentrations than the foods listed above.

Meat and Poultry

Food	Purine (mg/100g)	Category
Goose	165	High
Venison	160	High
Tongue (beef)	160	High
Turkey leg (dark meat)	150	High
Lamb leg	150	High
Pheasant	150	High
Veal	140	High
Quail	140	High
Duck	138	High
Beef sirloin	135	High
Bison	135	High
Rabbit	130	High
Chicken thigh	130	High
Beef ground (lean)	125	High
Pork tenderloin	125	High
Chicken drumstick	125	High
Pork chop	120	High
Goat	120	High
Turkey breast	120	High
Beef ribeye	120	High
Chicken breast	115	High
Pork loin	115	High
Beef brisket	115	High
Chicken wing	110	High
Pork shoulder	110	High
Ham	105	High
Wheat germ	110	High

Moderate-High Seafood

Food	Purine (mg/100g)	Category
Tuna (fresh)	160	High
Shrimp	150	High
Trout	150	High
Salmon	140	High
Swordfish	140	High
Squid	135	High
Oysters	135	High
Haddock	130	High
Halibut	125	High
Tuna (canned)	120	High
Bass (sea)	120	High
Lobster	118	High
Crab	115	High
Snapper	115	High
Perch	115	High
Salmon (canned)	110	High

Animal vs. Plant Purines: A Critical Distinction

This is one of the most important and underappreciated facts in gout nutrition: not all purines are equal. The source matters enormously.

Animal purines (from meat, organ meats, and seafood) are consistently associated with increased gout risk in epidemiological studies. The 2004 Choi et al. study found a 41% increase in gout risk for those in the highest quintile of meat consumption and a 51% increase for the highest quintile of seafood consumption.

Plant purines (from vegetables, legumes, and grains) show no association with increased gout risk. The same study found no significant relationship between vegetable purine consumption and gout. A 2012 study in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases confirmed this finding, showing that purine-rich vegetables were not associated with recurrent gout flares.

Several factors may explain this difference:

Factor	Animal Purines	Plant Purines
Purine type	Higher in hypoxanthine	Higher in adenine
Absorption rate	Higher bioavailability	Lower bioavailability
Food matrix	Often with saturated fat	Often with fiber, antioxidants
Net effect on uric acid	Increases serum levels	No measurable increase
Association with gout flares	Strong	None detected

This means vegetables like spinach, asparagus, mushrooms, and peas are safe to eat despite their moderate purine content.

The Hidden High Purine Sources

Some high-purine sources are not obvious:

Food	Why It Is Surprising	Purine Impact
Beer	Contains guanosine from yeast, plus alcohol impairs excretion	High
Gravy	Concentrated meat drippings extract purines	Moderate-High
Meat broth/stock	Purines dissolve in cooking liquid	Moderate-High
Bouillon cubes	Concentrated meat extract	Moderate
Some supplements	Brewer’s yeast, spirulina	Variable

Beyond Purines: What Else to Track

Focusing only on high purine foods misses significant pieces of the gout puzzle. As we explain in dietary purines are only 30 percent of the picture, excretion matters just as much:

Fructose is the only sugar that both increases uric acid production and impairs kidney excretion. A regular soda with zero purines may have a larger impact on uric acid than a moderate serving of chicken.

Alcohol impairs uric acid excretion regardless of purine content. Beer is a double hit because it combines alcohol with guanosine purines, but all alcohol affects excretion through lactate competition in the kidneys.

Dehydration concentrates uric acid in the blood and reduces kidney clearance. Adequate water intake is one of the simplest and most effective factors you can control.

Insulin resistance impairs the kidneys’ ability to excrete uric acid through effects on the URAT1 transporter. High glycemic foods that spike insulin may affect uric acid levels through this mechanism.

A Smarter Approach to Tracking

Rather than memorizing purine values and trying to stay under an arbitrary daily budget, tracking what you eat alongside your symptoms over time reveals patterns that are specific to your body. For a side-by-side comparison of all foods, see our complete purine food chart. Some people can eat moderate amounts of high-purine foods without issue, while others find that non-purine triggers like fructose or dehydration are their primary problem.

Urica helps with this by tracking not just purine content but also fructose, hydration, and other metabolic factors alongside flare data. Over time, AI-powered correlation analysis identifies which factors are most strongly associated with your personal flare patterns, giving you data-driven insights rather than generic food lists.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always consult your doctor or rheumatologist about managing gout, especially regarding medication and treatment plans.