Do you know how much histamine you're eating?

I didn't! This post is going to be a bit different. Instead a product review, I'm going to talk about diet. I've recently started reading about histamine-containing/inducing foods and thought it might be interesting to mention it here.

If you're sensitive or allergic, you might've heard of histamine before, or at least, antihistamines. Histamine is part of our first line of defense and triggers an inflammatory response to whatever your immune system considers to be foreign. Unfortunately in some cases, like mine and many others, your immune system can't tell friend from foe so by default, it overreacts to just about anything under the sun.

According to the International Chronic Urticaria Society all food that comes into contact with microbes contain histamine which is the result of microbial enzymes converting the amino acid histidine (present in all proteins) to histamine. Histamine content can reach reactive levels before any sign of food spoilage, and those sensitive to histamine can suffer from histamine poisoning even if the food is technically still fine to most mortals (and this may now explain why I've always had an unusually high number of food poisoning episodes). On top of that, some foods have naturally occurring histamine and others are histamine inducing (histamine is naturally produced in your body and some foods boost that production). The link above gives a very thorough list of foods with high levels of histamine or that induce histamine release. Here's a short list of common foods:

Foods with naturally containing histamine: Spinach and eggplant

Histamine inducing foods: Chocolate (I know, bummer!) , alcohol, uncooked egg whites, aged and fermented cheeses (this is where half my diet gets cut down, I'm a huuuge cheese lover!).

They suggest a histamine restricted diet which I am going to try and report back. I'll just have to wait to get rid of what is currently in my fridge including a half a dozen peaches and nectarines which I'm apparently supposed to avoid as well as probably a half a pound of cheese. Has anyone ever tried this? Did it work for you?

Hope everyone is having a good week!