GOUT & TOMATOES
ARE TOMATOES BAD
FOR GOUT?

We all eat tomatoes, we are either eat them fresh in a
salad, as a sauce, paste, juice and ketchup! It’s a popular
vegetable, some say it’s a fruit since it contains seeds but
at the end tomatoes contain a rich source of antioxidants,
is high in vitamin c and lycopene, a naturally occurring
chemical that gives fruits and vegetables a red color like
watermelon, apricots or pink grapefruits. In addition,
tomatoes carry a lot of water.

There is a misconception amongst certain
gout sufferers that tomatoes actually cause
gout attacks. This is simply not true if you
closely examine the ingredients. Tomatoes
are 90% water and water is important for us
gout sufferers.

Next, tomatoes are a low purine
food and all of my readers should
know by now that foods that are
high in purines can trigger a gout
attack.
What else? Tomatoes are low in
sugar and carbs as well. Heck
they’re even very low in calories.
100 grams only has 18 calories!

It’s true when tomatoes are cooked they do become slightly acidic
in the body once they are metabolized but not anything significant
that will cause any serious harm to your health.
When cooking them, tomatoes release more lycopene which is
very beneficial for so many other health conditions. if you eat them
fresh like I do in my Greek salad then you’ll experience less acidity.

The issue with tomatoes
is that they have a low pH
and that is probably why
they are such a popular
gout trigger and to
complicate matters more,
the pH in tomatoes varies
depending on the variety
of the tomato and how
it has been processed.

Here is the approximate pH value of
different processed tomatoes:
• vine ripened 4.42-4.65
• juice 4.10-4.60
• canned 3.50-4.70
• puree 4.30-4.47
• paste 3.50-4.70
• strained 4.32-4.58
• Cherry tomatoes 4.00-
4.50
• Beefsteak 4.60-5.00
• Roma and Vita Gold 5.10
• Super Marzano 5.20
• cream of tomato soup
4.62
As you can see tomatoes generally have a pH level
of under 5 so that makes this food very acidic
which is not good for gout sufferers.

There is a study that proves tomatoes decrease uric acid
levels involving “Gazpacho” soup which is a vegetable
soup but consists of at least 50% tomatoes. The proof lies
in this study, make sure to check it out, it actually lowered
uric acid by 1-1.2 mg/dl for those who ate the soup daily!
For gazpacho soup recipes, make sure to check out gout
and you’s Pinterest page.

In August 2015, a new University of Otago study from New
Zealand claims that tomatoes are indeed a gout trigger. A
survey of New Zealanders who suffer from gout asked
which foods caused their trigger and tomatoes were listed
as a trigger 20.2% of the time.
It was ranked as the fourth most commonly mentioned
trigger behind alcohol, seafood and red meat. This data
was then pooled and analyZed from three long-running us
studies to compare. The data showed that consuming
tomatoes is linked to higher uric acid levels in the blood.

HERE IS A QUOTE FROM ONE OF THE
STUDY’S RESEARCHERS:
“Whilst our data cannot support the claim that tomato
consumption is a trigger of gout attacks, we provide
support for the hypothesis that tomato consumption
may trigger gout attacks through increasing serum
urate.”

There is speculation that since tomatoes are high in a
compound called glutamate which can “stimulate or
amplify the synthesis of urate by acting as a nitrogen
donor in the purine synthesis pathway,” they suggested,
that this may be the root cause. The researchers did
state that further research is needed to determine this
relationship between gout triggers and tomatoes.

Although tomatoes are very nutritious
and obviously suitable for most gout
patients, tomatoes should be
consumed as part of an overall
balanced diet. Don’t go eating
tomatoes morning, day and night
cause I wrote about the many
benefits of this fine vegetable.
Finally a word of caution. Try and read
the labels of food products containing
tomatoes and see how much sodium is
in them, as well as sugar, since salt and

FIND OUT MORE
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE
EFFECT OF TOMATO ON GOUT
CLICK HERE