Foods High in Histamine
Some foods are naturally high in histamine because the bacteria that produce histamine are ubiquitous. They settle on any living thing at the moment it is harvested and begin to dine on it and emit histamine.
Foods that are known to become covered in histamine upon being harvested include vegetables and fish. The less fresh the food, the more histamine it contains because the bacteria are continuously producing histamine. This histamine problem is exacerbated by two things.
The first relates to the fact that the histamine quantities increase the longer it takes the food to get from harvest to when it is eaten. The modern method of transporting food long distances exacerbates this problem. Buy the freshest food that is sourced locally. Ideally, you should eat your vegetables as soon as you have picked them from the garden and your fish as quickly as you can catch, scale, gut and cook it for dinner. (I have not experimented with fresh-frozen fish. There is time for the bacteria to get to work while the fish are scaled, gutted and deboned before being frozen. Freezing does not kill the bacteria but it does slow down their voracious appetites and emission of histamine.)
Second, the fact that these foods are often sealed in plastic when harvested prevents the histamine from escaping. Histamine, like any gas, disperses into the air over time. This is why, when I could still tolerate lettuce grown out in a field and transported in a cardboard box that had holes allowing air circulation, I could not tolerate lettuce sold in plastic containers.
Another source of histamine is meat and poultry cooked on the bone. So long as the bones are removed prior to cooking, meat and poultry do not contain histamine. Cooking causes the release of histamine from the bone marrow. I suspect this may be due to the fact that mast cells are produced in the bone marrow and, when provoked, they release histamine – see my blog on Mast Cell Activation Syndrome.
Removal of bones before cooking fish does not solve the histamine problem because fish, upon being caught, also become covered by external bacteria that coat the fish in histamine.
Foods that are known to become covered in histamine upon being harvested include vegetables and fish. The less fresh the food, the more histamine it contains because the bacteria are continuously producing histamine. This histamine problem is exacerbated by two things.
The first relates to the fact that the histamine quantities increase the longer it takes the food to get from harvest to when it is eaten. The modern method of transporting food long distances exacerbates this problem. Buy the freshest food that is sourced locally. Ideally, you should eat your vegetables as soon as you have picked them from the garden and your fish as quickly as you can catch, scale, gut and cook it for dinner. (I have not experimented with fresh-frozen fish. There is time for the bacteria to get to work while the fish are scaled, gutted and deboned before being frozen. Freezing does not kill the bacteria but it does slow down their voracious appetites and emission of histamine.)
Second, the fact that these foods are often sealed in plastic when harvested prevents the histamine from escaping. Histamine, like any gas, disperses into the air over time. This is why, when I could still tolerate lettuce grown out in a field and transported in a cardboard box that had holes allowing air circulation, I could not tolerate lettuce sold in plastic containers.
Another source of histamine is meat and poultry cooked on the bone. So long as the bones are removed prior to cooking, meat and poultry do not contain histamine. Cooking causes the release of histamine from the bone marrow. I suspect this may be due to the fact that mast cells are produced in the bone marrow and, when provoked, they release histamine – see my blog on Mast Cell Activation Syndrome.
Removal of bones before cooking fish does not solve the histamine problem because fish, upon being caught, also become covered by external bacteria that coat the fish in histamine.
