A very clear and interesting piece about histamine intolerance can be found at allergynutrition.com. I especcially like the picture, that shows how the threshold can get passed, as a bucket model. The bucket slowly fills up with histamine until it streams over, and symptoms come into existence.
The meats comes down to only fresh, unprocessed, unsmoked, unaged, uneverything meat. Just pure and fresh meats, and be especially careful with seafood and pork.
Weirdly I’ve started to eat a lot of fish, I was told these are generally okay when frozen. So I stocked my freezer with loads of bags of frozen fish from the supermarket. As with chicken, I love how I can just throw it the oven with some herbs, or put them in the tajine.
Processed meats/Smoked meats llll l
Pork/Swine ll
Chicken liver ll
Chicken l
Mincemeat l
Left-over cooked meats ll
Vacuum packed meats ll (these are often several weeks old.)
Aged meats l
Smoked fish lllll l
All fish llll
Shell fish llll
Tuna fish lll
Cat fish l
Salmon ll – fresh <36h v
Skipjack l
Mahi Mahi l
Amberjack l
Bluefish l
Bonito l
Marlin l
And a list of most of the meats that are allowed, for variation, and amazement purposes I still never ate muskrat, even though here in the Netherlands it’s a well known dish, but honestly I haven’t got a clue where to find it. 😉
Calf meat v
Lamb meat v
Horse meat v
Sheep meat v
Goat meat v
Chicken turkey v
Dove v
Duck v
Ostrich v
Partridge v
Fowl v
Rabbit v
Hare v
Deer v
Muskrat v
Frog legs v
Tilapia v
Pangasius v
Herring v
Lists:
http://www.michiganallergy.com/food_and_histamine.shtml
http://www.urticaria.thunderworksinc.com/pages/lowhistamine.htm
http://www.digitalnaturopath.com/treat/T444777.html
http://www.allergyuk.org/fs_histamine.aspx
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/85/5/1185
http://www.esfbchannel.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=15777&sid=822c9837c371230e99db2d80ef9f56be
http://web.archive.org/web/20070830124324/users.bigpond.net.au/allergydietitian/fi/amines.html
List from Dutch nutritionist society.
Over the veggies most lists advice the same. Since there are many, many vegetables allowed, I only counted those from the forbidden sections. Always mentioned are eggplant, tomato, sauerkraut and spinach. Often are pumpkins, mushrooms, pickled and canned vegetables and soy products mentioned as well.
The nutritionist I see allows me to eat most of the beans and vegetables from cans, glass and when dried. But these are not okay if they come with additives, sauce and/or herbs. She’s also the one behind all the ok’s in the legumes section. I buy most of my vegetables fresh or frozen. So haven’t yet tried if these are indeed alright to eat. She also only wants me to avoid champignons (White buttons) in the mushroom section.
The heated eggplant thing also comes from my nutritionist, apparently with cooking the molecule that works as a histamine liberator will fall apart. It’s most often mentioned as a histamine containing vegetable though, so once again she left me wondering. I don’t like eggplant anyway, so I wouldn’t want to try either.
What I did try, but is not written down, is she allows Italian tomato’s if sieved. I must confess these give fewer problems, but can still make me itchy.
Vegetables
Eggplant llll lll
(thoroughly heated eggplant) v
Tomato lllll lll
Sauerkraut llll lll
Spinach lllll lll
Champignons l
Mushrooms ll
Pumpkin llll
Pickled/Canned vegetables llll
Cabbage v l
Pickled cabbage
Soy and Soy products lll
Legumes
Broad Beans v ll
Chicken peas ll
Lentils v ll
Red Beans v ll
Soy Beans v ll
Lupin seeds l
Lists:
http://www.michiganallergy.com/food_and_histamine.shtml
http://www.urticaria.thunderworksinc.com/pages/lowhistamine.htm
http://www.digitalnaturopath.com/treat/T444777.html
http://www.allergyuk.org/fs_histamine.aspx
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/85/5/1185
http://www.esfbchannel.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=15777&sid=822c9837c371230e99db2d80ef9f56be
http://web.archive.org/web/20070830124324/users.bigpond.net.au/allergydietitian/fi/amines.html
List from Dutch nutritionist society.
I wanted to examine the diet somewhat closer, but since there are so many foods, it’s broken up in parts. The fruits come first, since I personally really like fruits, and got rather tired of the apples, pears and grapes I mostly ate. One thing that I learned from this is that melons are okay, and watermelon seems to be as well, though many of the dutch resources say that these no good as they contain histamine liberators.
I have googled for some dietary lists, at the end of the post the used ones are mentioned, and counted the times fruits are mentioned as either allowed or restricted. A ‘v’ is allowed and ‘l’ is not allowed.
Pineapple, papaya, strawberries, cranberries, plums and avocado are almost always mentioned as high in histamine or histamine releasing factors. Citrus has histamine releasing capacities, and generally should be avoided as well. Though some just caution but promote moderate consumption of these fruits.
Bananas seem to be highly controversial, some lists say these are okay, others put this in the avoidance zone. Also controversial are kiwi’s.
Opinions over stone fruits like apricot, cherry, nectarines and prunes also vary, from okay to bad. I think for certain of these, like apricots could be okay if eaten while fresh, whereas the dried version will have accumulated more histamine, since the dried version is often on the restricted side. On the list from my nutritionist dried apricot, raisins and figs are allowed if these are without sulfur. And please don’t ask me why strawberries are ok if they’ve been washed by hot water, maybe the thing that triggers mast cells to release histamine is located on their skin and easily flushed off with hot water? Couldn’t find any mention of this with a quick search.
I ate a few strawberries last summer, but had taken some antihistamines as I was eating at a friend’s place, so I have no clue if they would make me react. They did taste quite good even washed in hot water. Poor guys trying to seduce a lady with strawberries while she is not allowed to eat them.
There is overwhelming agreement over the low histamine content of apples, melons and rhubarb. While mango, pears and grapes all get mentioned as restricted by one of the dietary lists. Even though they’ve been OK’d by many other lists.
In all cases what matters most is that the fruit is fresh, as bacterial activity breaks histidine down into histamine, so the more ripe the fruit, the more histamine it will contain.
The list:
Apple vvvv
Apricot vllv
Avocado llll
Banana vv lllll
Blackberry v
Blueberries l
Cantaloupe v
Carambola v
Cherry vlll
Citrus lllv – (oranges 0lll – grapefruit v ll – manderine o – lemon v- lime lv – kumquats l – limquats l – mineola l – pomelo l – tangelo l – ugli l )
Cranberry lll
Currant lll
Date vll
Figs vv
Grape vvvl
Guave vl
Indian fig/prickly pear l
Kaki v
Kiwi lll vv
Loganberry l
Lyche v
Mango vvvl
Melon vv
Nectarine vll
Papaya llllll
Passion fruit ll
Peach vlvlv
Pear vvlv
Pineapple lllllll
Plums lll
Prunes vll
Raisins ll
Raspberries llll
Rhubarb vv
Strawberries llllllll
Strawberries washed in hot water v
Watermelon vvv
lists:
http://www.michiganallergy.com/food_and_histamine.shtml
http://www.urticaria.thunderworksinc.com/pages/lowhistamine.htm
http://www.digitalnaturopath.com/treat/T444777.html
http://www.allergyuk.org/fs_histamine.aspx
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/85/5/1185
http://www.esfbchannel.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=15777&sid=822c9837c371230e99db2d80ef9f56be
http://web.archive.org/web/20070830124324/users.bigpond.net.au/allergydietitian/fi/amines.html
http://www.cs.nsw.gov.au/csls/handbook/FactSheetView.asp?Number=44
And I used the list I got from my nutritionist.
