Histamine In Food & Drink
Author: Chloe Hall | Tolerance Resident from Nov to Dec 2024
Histamine intolerance occurs when the body either overproduces histamine or has trouble breaking it down (or both!). Certain food and drink can affect the levels of histamine in the body, and it can help to be aware and consider two broad categories:
● Food and drink that contain high amounts of histamine.
● Food and drink that inhibit or reduce the effectiveness and/or the availability of the diamine oxidase (DAO), the enzyme that breaks down histamine.
Histamine intolerance is a complex condition, with various underlying factors affecting each person differently. This means that not everyone is affected by the same food and drink and each individual will have their own ‘histamine threshold’; the amount of dietary histamine that they can deal with at a given time. And the tricky thing is, this can change depending on other factors such as:
● Stress
● Illness
● The Menstrual Cycle/menopause
● Response to allergens e.g. hayfever
It’s important to also recognise the need for personalised dietary advice from qualified nutritional experts and articles like this one should only be used as a general guide. We encourage people to complete the Tolerance Questionnaire and to speak with a qualified nutritional expert to gather a holistic understand of how histamine is affecting you and your lifestyle.
General observations:
● There is no ‘gold standard’ low histamine list. The storage, transport and processing of foods can all effect histamine levels. In addition to this, it has not been agreed what histamine level would make a food ‘high histamine’.
● Histamine levels in food vary depending on their ripeness and/or maturity.
● Fermented foods such as cheese, kimchi and aged foods such as cured meats
and aged steak are likely to be high in histamine.
● Fresh, unprocessed or as little processed foods are generally a safer bet.
● It’s important to not limit your diet too much or for too long as this can lead to
nutritional deficiencies.
● Nutritional experts advise to log a food diary to identify your own dietary triggers and to follow histamine restrictive diets for a 2 to 4 week period.
High histamine food groups:
● Alcohol, including wine, beer and cider
● Fermented foods e.g. yoghurt and kimchi
● Matured cheeses
● Processed meat products
● Pork
● Aubergine and tomatoes
● Grapes
● Shellfish and oily fish
Diamine oxidase (DAO) enzyme inhibitor food groups:
● Black tea, green tea and coffee
● Chocolate
● Avocado, banana, citrus fruit and strawberries
● Lentils
● Pistachios
On other lists online, you may have seen claims that certain foods are ‘histamine liberators’, however this mechanism is not backed up by research. It’s important to consider the impact of removing these foods and drinks from your diet and
to remember that this article is a guide and should not be considered dietary advice.
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2007;85(5):1185-96. - Comas-Basté O, Sánchez-Pérez S, Veciana-Nogués MT, Latorre-Moratalla M, Vidal-Carou MDC. Histamine Intolerance: The Current State of the Art. Biomolecules. 2020;10.
- Hrubisko M, Danis R, Huorka M, Wawruch M. Histamine Intolerance-The More We
Know the Less We Know. A Review. Nutrients. 2021;13. - Sánchez-Pérez S, Comas-Basté O, Veciana-Nogués MT, Latorre-Moratalla ML, Vidal-Carou MC. Low-Histamine Diets: Is the Exclusion of Foods Justified by Their Histamine Content? Nutrients. 2021;13.