September 4 marks National Macadamia Nut Day, a small calendar event celebrating the buttery nut that Hawaii made famous. For most people it is a trivia note. If you manage gout, though, the occasion points at something genuinely useful: nuts are one of the rare snack categories that gout-friendly eating plans treat as a green light. Snack aisles are otherwise a minefield of cured meats, shellfish dips, and sugary drinks. A nut that is creamy, filling, and low in purines is worth a closer look — with a few honest caveats about preparation and portion size.
Lab-measured values from the FoodCanEat database. Both sit far below the 50 mg/100 g threshold our database classifies as safe — which is why nuts keep their green-light status for gout-friendly snacking.
Why Nuts Stay Low on the Purine Scale
Purines come from cell nuclei, and the density of purines in a food tracks closely with the type of tissue it comes from. Muscle tissue — steak, chicken thigh, a fish fillet — is packed with mitochondria-dense cells and, historically in animal muscle, significant nucleic acid content. Organ meats are even richer. Plant seeds work differently: a nut is a seed built mostly from fat, starch, and storage proteins, with a comparatively small share of high-purine material. The proteins in nuts are seed proteins, not muscle proteins, and their purine contribution per 100 grams lands near the bottom of the food spectrum.
The numbers back this up. Our lab-measured database puts walnuts at 19.6 mg of purines per 100 g and almonds at 31.4 mg per 100 g — both comfortably under the 50 mg/100 g line we use to mark a food as safe. For scale, anchovies and sweetbreads can exceed 400 mg per 100 g. You can see the full measured spread on our walnuts and almonds pages, or compare the whole category in the nut and seed purine ranking.
Large cohort research points the same direction. In the Health Professionals Follow-up Study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Choi and colleagues tracked more than 47,000 men for twelve years and found that gout risk rose with meat and seafood intake but not with purine-rich plant foods (N Engl J Med 2004). The takeaway researchers drew from that analysis — that the source of a purine matters as much as the amount — is exactly why nuts never appeared on the problem list.
Macadamia Nuts: What the USDA Data Shows
One transparency note first: macadamias are not yet in our own lab-measured database, so the figures below come from USDA FoodData Central, the federal food composition database, and we label them accordingly.
What the USDA entry for raw macadamia nuts shows is a food dominated by fat — roughly 76 g of fat per 100 g, of which about 59 g is monounsaturated fat, the same fat family celebrated in olive oil. Protein content is modest (around 8 g per 100 g), and published purine composition tables place macadamias among the lowest-purine nuts available, at or near zero. Compared with our measured walnut and almond values of 19.6 and 31.4 mg per 100 g, macadamias are, if anything, expected to sit even lower on the purine scale — though we prefer to wait for direct measurement before printing a specific number in our database.
The monounsaturated fat profile is a quiet bonus. People with gout run higher baseline risk for cardiovascular disease, and dietary patterns that favor unsaturated fats over saturated ones align with general heart-health guidance. None of this makes macadamias medicinal — at nearly 720 calories per 100 g they are calorie-dense by any measure — but as snack picks go, the fundamentals look friendly.
The Traps: Salt, Sugar, and Honey Roasting
The nut is not the problem. The coating can be. Walk the snack aisle and most macadamia products come dressed in one of three ways, each with a catch:
- Salt. Heavy salting pushes sodium high, and many people with gout also manage blood pressure. Salted nuts are fine as an occasional pick; unsalted versions are the better daily default.
- Sugar glazes and candy shells. Added sugar adds fructose, and fructose metabolism is one of the few dietary pathways shown to acutely raise uric acid production. A large prospective cohort by Choi, Willett, and Curhan found that men who consumed the most fructose — largely from sugar-sweetened drinks — had a substantially higher risk of incident gout than the lowest consumers (BMJ 2008).
- Honey-roasted varieties. Honey tastes more virtuous, but it is roughly 40% fructose. Honey-roasting a nut pairs a low-purine food with a sugar pathway that works against your uric acid goals. For a deeper dive on that trade-off, our honey and gout page breaks down the numbers.
The plain-roast version of any nut avoids all three traps. It is also, conveniently, the version where the nut's own flavor actually shows up.
Portion and Practical Swaps
A sensible serving of nuts is one small handful — about 28 g, or roughly 10 to 12 macadamia kernels — which lands near 200 calories. That is a real snack, not a garnish, and for most gout-friendly eating patterns it fits without issue. If afternoon snacking is where your plan usually collapses, portioning nuts into small containers ahead of time beats grazing from a large bag.
Practical ways to use them: swap croutons for chopped toasted macadamias on salads, mix them with plain popcorn instead of chips, or stir a few into morning oatmeal. If you want to browse the full category before your next grocery run, the FoodCanEat database lists purine and fructose values across the nut and seed family, so you can compare specific items side by side — the nuts and seeds tag page is the quickest entry point.
National Macadamia Nut Day will not be the biggest item on any calendar, but it lands on a snack most people with gout can eat without a second thought. Keep the coating simple, keep the handful small, and it is one of the easier wins in an otherwise tricky snack aisle.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are nuts high in purines?
No. Most nuts fall well below the 50 mg of purines per 100 g that food databases treat as a safe threshold. Lab-measured values from the FoodCanEat database show walnuts at 19.6 mg and almonds at 31.4 mg per 100 g, and other common nuts sit in a similar range. This aligns with cohort evidence: in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, purine-rich plant foods were not linked to higher gout risk, while meat and seafood were. Nuts are among the safest protein-rich snacks for a gout-friendly diet.
Can I eat macadamia nuts every day if I have gout?
A daily serving is generally reasonable, with two watch-outs. First, portion: macadamias carry roughly 720 calories per 100 g, and weight management is one of the more effective lifestyle factors in gout care, so the standard advice is one small handful (about 28 g) rather than an open bag. Second, preparation: choose raw or plain dry-roasted versions rather than honey-roasted or candy-glazed ones, since added sugars and honey bring fructose, a pathway associated with increased uric acid. If you keep both in mind, macadamias fit comfortably into a gout-friendly routine.
Why should I avoid honey-roasted nuts with gout?
The honey is the issue, not the nut. Honey is roughly 40% fructose by weight, and fructose metabolism drives ATP breakdown in the liver, which increases uric acid production — a pathway documented in prospective research linking high fructose intake to higher gout incidence. Honey-roasted nuts wrap a low-purine snack in a meaningful dose of that sugar. Plain roasted or raw nuts give you the same purine advantage without the fructose load, which is why they are the recommended default for gout-friendly snacking.
References:
1. Choi HK, Atkinson K, Karlson EW, Willett W, Curhan G. Purine-rich foods, dairy and protein intake, and the risk of gout in men: a prospective study. N Engl J Med. 2004;350(11):1093–1103. PMID: 15014182.
2. Choi HK, Willett W, Curhan G. Sugar-sweetened soft drinks, diet soft drinks, and serum uric acid level: the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey; and fructose consumption and the risk of incident gout in men: prospective cohort study. BMJ. 2008;336(7639):309–312. PMID: 18212119.
3. USDA FoodData Central: Nuts, macadamia nuts, raw (per 100 g: total fat approx. 75.8 g incl. approx. 59 g monounsaturated; protein approx. 7.9 g) — fdc.nal.usda.gov (data as of Sep 1, 2026).
4. Macadamia purine values per published food composition tables; FoodCanEat lab-measured values for walnuts (19.6 mg/100 g) and almonds (31.4 mg/100 g), FoodCanEat database, 2026.