How we rate

Every grocery rating on GoutMarket is computed, not chosen. The same rule runs on every product, and the rule is GoutSafe's.

Groceries: from the label to a grade

1. The label. We read the ingredient list and Nutrition Facts from USDA FoodData Central, which is public domain and dated. When USDA doesn't carry a product, we use Open Food Facts. Every product page names its source and the label date.
2. Matching. Each ingredient is matched to one of GoutSafe's 542 graded foods. Additives, salt, water, oils and starches are recognized and carry no purine. If an ingredient in the first three can't be matched, we don't publish the product rather than guess. 409 products are held for that or another reason right now.
3. Amounts. US labels list ingredients by weight, heaviest first (21 CFR 101.4), but rarely give amounts. So the third ingredient is at most a third of the product, and anything after "contains 2% or less of" is at most 2%. We grade on the most purine the label allows, which can read stricter than the real recipe and never safer. The product page also shows a typical estimate.
4. Sugar. Added and total sugars come from the Nutrition Facts panel. We count half of added sugar as fructose, GoutSafe's sucrose rule, and slightly more when the label lists high-fructose corn syrup.
5. The grade. GoutSafe's food formula turns purine per serving (against a 400 mg daily guide) and fructose into a score, adds GoutSafe's penalties for added sugar and alcohol, and applies GoutSafe's thresholds for A to E. GoutSafe's safety floors apply too: very purine-dense foods, high-fructose foods, ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks can't read above a set grade.
6. Single-ingredient products take GoutSafe's grade for that food exactly. 578 products are rated this way.

Badges read Good (A or B), Moderate (C), Limit (D) and Avoid (E), and filters group C and D as one band. Today 907 groceries rate Good, 1231 Moderate or Limit and 51 Avoid.

What a label can't tell us

• Exact amounts. That's why we grade on the worst case the label allows.
• Recipe changes. A label can lag the shelf, so every page shows the label date and flags labels over a year old.
• How much you eat. Grades assume the label's serving. Twice the serving is twice the purine.
• You. Kidney function, medication and flare history all matter, which is a conversation for your doctor.

Supplements

Supplements get an evidence rating instead of a grade: Strong, Moderate, Limited, Insufficient or Evidence against. It combines the human evidence for each active ingredient (randomized trials and meta-analyses first), the label dose against the dose studied, a named third-party test (USP, NSF or Informed Choice, not an unnamed "lab tested" claim), and whether a blend discloses its amounts. A label dose below the lowest studied dose, or a hidden blend, rates Insufficient. Every study is linked. We describe what studies measured, and we never say a product treats or prevents anything.

Gear

Gear has no purine, so it gets no grade. An item is listed only if it serves something GoutSafe's guidance asks for, such as about 2 liters of fluid a day or weighing portions, and its specs are read from the maker's page.

Meal kits

Each plan's current menu is run dish by dish through GoutSafe's Dish Decoder. Plans are ranked by the share of dishes that grade A to C. A menu more than 14 days old is marked for a re-check and drops out of the ranking.

Ranking

Lists are ranked by grade, then by a grade that rests on one GoutSafe food over a label estimate, then by less purine, then by less added sugar. Popularity only breaks exact ties. Commission is never an input. Our independence rules.

Data

GoutSafe snapshot synced 2026-10-06, 542 foods. Ingredient data: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, FoodData Central, and Open Food Facts contributors (ODbL). Product photos: Open Food Facts contributors, CC BY-SA 3.0.