Soup is one of the favorites in Chinese dishes, especially for Cantonese. In Chinese restaurant, it is usually served before or in the middle of the meal. It is also commonly served with noodles. While at home, we tend to have the soup before and after meal. Some people even have soups almost everyday. I used to have soups twice or three times a week.
There are two ways that Chinese prepare their soups, namely quick-boiled and slow-boiled or called “old fire soup”. For quick-boiled soup, we just put all the ingredients into the boiled water until everything is cooked. It usually takes five to ten minutes. For the slow-boiled soup, the process is much longer. It can take up two to three hours.
What do we put in the slow-boiled soups? Usually, we have many different ingredients such as meats, bones, vegetables, and sometimes Chinese herbs or medicine. While Chinese believe that slow-boiled is good for our health, it is actually bad for gout. The reason is simple enough to understand. The long boiling process actually dissolves the purine in the meat into the water. So after two to three hours, the soup has much purine in it. Having such soup is like having a high does of purine and can increase the uric acid concentration in blood shortly.
One would think that soups in restaurants should be better. However, restaurants usually would not spend two to three hours to prepare soups. Otherwise, the cost would be high. Therefore, cost is also the reason they would minimize the total amount of ingredients in the soups. How can we have soups that have good favor with a low cost? Additives is the answer. Hence, additives are usually added to enhance the favor. As stated in my previous post, some additives can increase the purine level. The worst of the soups in restaurant is, we don't know what actually has been put into the "soup" for the favors. Bones? Seafood? It's just an unknown. Canned soups and instant noodles share the same problem. Even in western restaurant, I notice that most of the soups have mushrooms or clam which has high purine.
Soup is something that I did not aware of since it is in my Chinese culture. In the past, I would have one bowl before the meal and one after. I would also drink the soup in the cup/instant noodles. I just did not know it is bad for gout. Until I read more and more about the gout, I started to realize that soup could be one of the cause of my gout. Now, I would not have soup while eating outside. Even at home, I have only half bowl of it. Half bowl seems to be the right amount that I can bare.
For those who really love soups, I think quick-boiled soup is the only choice.
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