Debaser wrote: I scoured said list and can't really think of anything on it that might have caused it....old and fat seems to be the probable cause
I know there is a lot of food stuff on my site - gouties tend to be obsessed with it - but it is rarely as important as is made out.
The odd food item does not cause gout, though total diet might contribute.
Gout comes from excess uric acid which crystallises in the joints and other body tissues. Our immune system attacks these crystals, but cannot kill them so they just get hidden by white blood cells, gradually building up into a crippling timebomb of feverish pain and misery.
Far from being a 17th century disease, gout is very much of today. Obesity contributes, but maybe not as much as excess iron. Our 17th century ancestors had a penchant for lead poisoning. These days we prefer iron abuse.
Outside of food issues, there are a huge number of gout sufferers who simply had the bad luck to be born to gout-prone parents. Others fall foul of kidney problems or gout inducing medicines (diuretics for blood pressure are doing a fine job of keeping gout more popular than it has ever been)
Its complex.
To help reduce some complexities, I have a very useful gout forum near to the less useful food list you studied (also, I'm currently overhauling GoutPal.com to make key information easier to find).
The simple solution - and absolute must if you ever want to be pain free in future - is to lower your uric acid. Always know your number, and never let it rise above .35 mmol/L (that's the common UK scale - elsewhere it is 6mg/dL). To get rid of the uric acid crystals that are already hiding in and around your joints, you need to aim much lower for at least 6 months.
GoutPal