What you absolutely need to know about histamine
in food you should know

The histamine content of food can vary. The longer a food is stored, the more histamine it develops. This is due to histamine-producing bacteria found on food. These bacteria multiply much more rapidly on foods containing animal proteins. However, they are also found on fruits and vegetables. Thus, a harmless, low-histamine apple can become a veritable histamine bomb. And a young Gouda, aged for only a few weeks, will be more easily tolerated than, for example, Parmesan or blue cheese.

For this reason, all foods that are preserved (e.g. pickled cucumbers), fermented (e.g. sauerkraut) or aged for a long time (e.g. cheese or ham) should be avoided. In other words: The fresher a food is, the less histamine it usually contains.

Histamine-free foods

There's practically no such thing as a completely histamine-free food! That's why we talk about low-histamine foods, and even then, it always depends on your individual tolerance level. Below, we've provided an overview of low-histamine and high-histamine foods.