Purines from food are broken down into uric acid in the body.
In normal amounts, this is no problem, but in some cases, it can lead to conditions like gout.
It’s one of the reasons that some people are worried about eating too much tofu.
This isn’t a huge issue on a vegan diet since most foods high in purines are animal products, but if you have a good reason to limit your intake, the data below on this page will help.
Amount of Purines in Vegan Foods
You can’t look up purine content like you can for common nutrients like vitamin C or iron.
However, some studies have researched and published values for different foods.
This study in particular summed up the work of many others. I’ve summarized the total purine content for all the vegan foods it listed in the table below.
For reference:
- A very large amount of purines is considered more than 300 mg/100 g
- A large amount of purines is considered between 200-300 mg/100 g
| Food | Part | Total Purines (mg/100 g) |
|---|---|---|
| Nori | 591.7 | |
| Shiitake (dried) | 379.5 | |
| Freeze-dried tofu | 293.1 | |
| Parsley | 288.9 | |
| Wakame | 262.4 | |
| Soybean (dried) | 172.5 | |
| Spinach | Young leaf | 171.8 |
| Hijiki | 132.8 | |
| Broccoli sprout | 129.6 | |
| Fermented soybean (Natto) | 113.9 | |
| Azuki bean (dried) | 77.6 | |
| Buckwheat flour | 75.9 | |
| White radish sprouts | 73.2 | |
| Broccoli | 70 | |
| Green pepper | 69.2 | |
| Miso | Red miso | 63.5 |
| Bamboo shoot | Upper part | 63.3 |
| Sprouts (with bean) | 57.3 | |
| Cauliflower | 57.2 | |
| Japanese pumpkin | 56.6 | |
| Asparagus | Upper part | 55.3 |
| Soy sauce | Light color | 55.3 |
| Deep-fried tofu | 54.4 | |
| Spinach | Leaf | 51.4 |
| Eggplant | 50.7 | |
| Peanut | 49.1 | |
| Miso | White miso | 48.8 |
| Bean curd lees (Okara) | 48.6 | |
| Green soybean | 47.9 | |
| Kombu | 46.4 | |
| Soy sauce | Dark color | 45.2 |
| Barley | 44.3 | |
| Japanese leek (negi) | 41.4 | |
| Perilla leaves (shiso) | 41.4 | |
| Gumbo (okura) | 39.5 | |
| Komatsuna | Young leaf | 39 |
| Rice (unpolished) | 37.4 | |
| Broad bean | 35.5 | |
| Bean sprouts | 35 | |
| Rice (with the bud) | 34.5 | |
| Almond | 31.4 | |
| Tofu (Momen, chilled) | 31.1 | |
| Bamboo shoot | Lower part | 30.8 |
| Rice (polished) | 25.9 | |
| Flour (bread flour) | 25.8 | |
| Flour (pastry flour) | 25.8 | |
| Soymilk | 22 | |
| Tofu (Momen, 3 min boiled) | 21.9 | |
| Tofu (Kinu) | 20 | |
| Garlic chives (nira) | 19.4 | |
| Green-peas (canned) | 18.8 | |
| Avocado | 18.4 | |
| Garlic | 17 | |
| Sweet potato | 17 | |
| Flour (cake flour) | 15.7 | |
| Cladosiphon okamuranus(Mozuku) | 15.4 | |
| Zucchini | 13.1 | |
| Corn | 11.7 | |
| Komatsuna | Leaf | 10.6 |
| Asparagus | Lower part | 10.2 |
| Balsam pear (goya) | 9.9 | |
| Cucumber | 9.4 | |
| Japanese ginger (myoga) | 7.8 | |
| Chinese cabbage | 7 | |
| Potato | 6.5 | |
| Cabbage | 3.2 | |
| Cherry tomato | 3.1 | |
| Banana | 3 | |
| Ginger | 2.3 | |
| Onion | 2.3 | |
| Carrot | 2.2 | |
| Strawberry | 2.1 |
Vegan Foods High in Purines
There are only 5 foods on the list that were either “high” or “very high” in purines.
- Nori/Wakame – Both Nori and Wakame is a type of seaweed.
- Parsley – Considering it’s hard to eat a lot of parsley, that’s not much of a concern either.
- Frozen tofu – Only frozen tofu was very high in purines. Other forms of tofu ranked much lower. I would assume this is because freezing tofu changes its structure.
- Mushrooms (dried shiitake mushrooms) – Note that several mushroom varieties were listed in the study, all fairly high in purines, but I didn’t include them because I didn’t want a large part of the list to be the same type of food.
Any other vegan food has a relatively low amount of purines in them.
The majority of vegan foods are low in purines, so if you’d like to eat a vegan low purine diet, it shouldn’t be hard.
