The truth about "oyster sauce can increase uric acid levels" →

Recently, several friends asked me the same question: I saw a video online saying that eating oyster sauce will cause high uric acid?

Friend A said: My husband’s blood uric acid level is high. After hearing this, I just threw away the oyster sauce in my house!

Friend B said: I only heard that soy sauce has a lot of additives, so I changed to oyster sauce, thinking that oyster sauce tastes more delicious and contains the nutrition of oysters. But now I can't eat oyster sauce anymore, what should I do?

Friend C said: The video said that oyster sauce contains "flavor nucleotides", which can increase uric acid. What kind of technology and hard work is this?

I quickly comforted them and said: Don’t throw away the oyster sauce yet, listen to me analyze the reason carefully.

Let’s start with the ingredients and components of oyster sauce.

What is oyster sauce made of?

I took a look at the "additive-free" oyster sauce at home. Its main ingredients are: oyster juice (oysters, water, salt), water, brewed soy sauce, white sugar, salt, starch, wheat flour, and yeast extract.

This formula does not contain any food additives or "flavor nucleotides." However, is it a low-purine product?

Not really.

Because its first ingredient is "oyster juice", and oysters are shellfish seafood, which is a source of purine. People with hyperuricemia should not eat seafood. Shrimp paste, oyster juice, fresh shellfish juice, etc. are not suitable for them to use frequently.

According to the data on the Chinese Food Composition Table, 100 grams of oysters contain 282 mg of purine, and when making oyster juice, the water-soluble purine components in the oyster meat are extracted. However, after being diluted with water, the purine content in oyster juice will be significantly lower than that of the oysters themselves.

The last ingredient of this product is yeast extract. According to China's food composition table, the purine content in 100 grams of yeast is 338 mg. Yeast is a microorganism. After its cells decompose, they will produce a variety of nucleotides and amino acids, some of which have umami taste. Nucleotides are the source of purine .

However, since it is placed last, it means that the amount added is relatively small and its contribution to increasing the purine content should not be significant.

However, not all oyster sauces sold on the market use high-quality oyster juice as the first raw material. You should carefully read the ingredient list after buying it. Some products contain a very low proportion of oyster juice, which is not fresh, so various flavor-enhancing seasoning ingredients are added. Among these seasoning ingredients, the ingredient with the highest purine content is "flavor nucleotides", which is sodium inosinate and sodium guanylate.

Seasonings with the highest purine content: Chicken seasonings

Flavor nucleotides have a umami taste, and when they come into contact with MSG (monosodium glutamate), they will play a magical "synergistic role" - just adding a small amount of flavor nucleotides can increase the umami taste of MSG by more than 10 times, and the umami taste is very natural. This is the basis for the production of "chicken essence".

The basic ingredients of traditional chicken essence/chicken powder products are roughly: salt, MSG, flavor nucleotides, sugar, spices, starch and dextrin (used to dilute various ingredients and granulate).

On this basis, according to the different flavors of the products, some chicken extract or chicken bone extract, egg extract, fish and shellfish extract, yeast extract or plant protein hydrolysate, organic acid sodium salt (one of the natural sources of seafood flavor), mushroom powder, meat flavoring and other ingredients are added to make chicken soup, mushroom soup, scallop soup, etc.

After mixing these ingredients together, just add a spoonful of compound seasoning powder to a bowl of water to get a bowl of fresh soup with a more natural taste.

Nucleotides are not chemical products, they are naturally present in food and are part of the human body . They are produced during the degradation of genetic material in the cell nucleus. To be precise, these components are also produced when human tissues decompose, which is the so-called "endogenous purine".

However, adding flavor nucleotides to the ingredients will indeed significantly increase the purine content of the product. According to the data on the Chinese Food Composition Table, 100 grams of chicken essence contains 300-500 mg of purine. Although 1 gram of chicken essence only contains 3-5 grams of purine, if chicken essence is added to multiple foods for three meals a day, it is easy to increase the purine content by dozens of milligrams a day.

I said this 10 years ago: patients with hyperuricemia are not suitable to eat chicken essence frequently.

In response to consumers' aversion to MSG and flavor nucleotides, some high-end seasoning products have been replaced with other ingredients, such as matsutake powder, umami peptides, yeast extract, broth extract, etc. However, fungal ingredients, yeast extract and broth extract are also sources of purine .

Besides chicken essence, where else can we find flavor nucleotides?

However, even if your family doesn't eat chicken essence at all, you may not be able to avoid the flavor nucleotides in the seasoning. Because compound seasonings, catering products and processed foods are generally added with flavor-enhancing ingredients. After all, consumers use their tongues to identify food, and the more delicious the food is, the more popular it is.

For example:

Salty condiments such as soy sauce, steamed fish sauce, oyster sauce, etc.

Various mushroom sauces, chili sauce, garlic sauce, salad sauce, barbecue sauce and other condiments;

Various side dishes such as pickled mustard tuber, bamboo shoots in red oil, pickled cowpea chops, etc.

Seasoning packets and fillings for foods such as instant noodles, instant rice noodles, quick-frozen dumplings, and quick-frozen wontons;

Delicious snacks such as hot and sour noodles, spicy hotpot, and spicy hotpot;

Various salty snacks such as melon seeds, fried nuts, dried tofu, spicy strips, beef jerky, and pickled pepper chicken feet;

Grilled meat, sausage, ham, roast chicken, pickled duck, canned food and other cooked meats;

There are also various dishes and soups sold in restaurants and canteens...

Why does restaurant food taste so much more delicious and rich than what you cook yourself? Because most of them add a variety of flavor-enhancing ingredients, many of which contain flavor nucleotides or yeast extracts.

The same is true for all kinds of food recipes on the Internet, telling you to add "a spoonful of salt, a spoonful of sugar, a spoonful of soy sauce, a spoonful of oyster sauce, and a spoonful of chicken essence". How can such a strong seasoning not be delicious? Not only are there too many flavor nucleotides added together, but there is also too much sodium.

It’s not a big deal to be able to make delicious dishes using a lot of oil + a lot of salt + sugar + a lot of flavor-enhancing seasonings.

Some people will say: "Technology + hard work", how can it be healthy?

This is not entirely true. Is "traditional" broth low in purine?

Everyone knows that gout patients cannot drink meat broth, chicken broth, or seafood broth.

The soup made by chefs from whole chicken, pork bones, beef, seafood and other ingredients still contains a lot of flavor nucleotides and a lot of natural MSG ingredients, otherwise how could it taste so delicious. However, chefs spend time extracting and concentrating the MSG and chicken essence ingredients from natural ingredients, which is a more complicated process and more expensive.

Therefore, simply throwing away the oyster sauce at home will not avoid the flavor nucleotides in food.

More Dietary Factors That Raise Uric Acid

If we talk about the main cause of hyperuricemia, oyster sauce is definitely not one of the condiments.

According to current research evidence, eating too much fresh seafood, eating too much meat, and consuming too many sweet drinks and sweets are all important factors that promote elevated blood uric acid. Insufficient intake of vegetables, fruits, potatoes, milk, and staple grains also has a certain impact. Overweight and obesity themselves are factors that promote elevated uric acid.

Many children have high uric acid levels before they reach the age of 18. The first thing they should do is to reflect on whether they have a bad habit of drinking sweet drinks or whether they are too fat .

Friends who have family members with hyperuricemia may want to check this out.

There is another factor that many people may not know: salt and MSG are both sources of sodium. Eating large amounts of salt and MSG for a long time may increase the body's uric acid level.

Some researchers have found in animal experiments that a high-sodium diet promotes the metabolic pathway of aldehyde reductase-fructose kinase, increasing the production of endogenous fructose in the liver and hypothalamus. Fructose not only promotes obesity, fatty liver and insulin resistance, but also promotes elevated uric acid. In addition, people who love to eat meat have high purine intake, and when they gain weight, their metabolic disorders make the situation even worse.

Therefore, many people who like heavy food not only have a lot of fat on their stomachs, but also have high blood pressure and high uric acid levels .

Having said that, do you have some idea of ​​how to control uric acid levels from a dietary perspective?

For relevant content about controlling blood uric acid levels, you can read my previous article: "Why are there so many young people with high uric acid? 25 questions test and 15 improvement suggestions."

All in all, this video is very misleading.

Whether it is high uric acid levels or insulin resistance, it is mainly the result of unhealthy diet and lifestyle. Don't put all the blame on a certain seasoning or food.

Chicken essence, MSG, or oyster sauce are all good. For healthy people, adding a little bit to enhance the flavor is safe. But from the perspective of seasoning, ignoring the natural flavor of food and excessively pursuing a strong and delicious taste is an unhealthy taste preference. Whether it is adding soup stock or chicken essence, it will increase the intake of purine.

I guess someone will ask at this point: Is this flavor enhancer okay? Is that seasoning safe?

In fact, the principle of flavor enhancers is the same as that of sweeteners: all enjoyable things need to be limited in quantity. Indulgence will come at a price. Excessive indulgence in sensory enjoyment will inevitably bring adverse reactions to the body. This is true for sweetness, saltiness, and umami.

In short, it is right to keep the natural taste of food as much as possible when cooking, and to control the use of salty and umami seasonings. But more importantly , drink less sweet drinks, eat less sweets, do not eat too much fish and seafood, eat enough vegetables, fruits, grains and potatoes, drink more water, exercise more, and don't get fat .