histamine intolerance recipes

Was surprised at how hard it is to find recipes for people with histamine intolerance. One problem is that there are several lists of foods to avoid if you're trying to lower histamines in your diet and most of them do not agree with each other. There is some consensus on which foods are high in histamines. However, even that is difficult to scientifically measure because how long a food has been sitting and the preservation and cooking processes can all affect histamine levels. Then, most histamine intolerance lists start adding histamine releasing foods and foods that block enzymes that help dissipate histamine. Those lists usually don't agree. Plus, many of the low histamine recipe sites start adding in some high histamine foods in their recipes that the person writing about it can tolerate but someone else may not. Many low histamine recipe collections also throw in gluten-free, dairy-free and other dietary restrictions that may reduce options too far when someone actually can tolerate these other conditions.

Gluten free recipes tend to use non-wheat flours and often include xanthan gum. Xanthan gum is usually grown on a mold medium. For those of us with mold allergies, it's not the safest ingredient to be consuming. I haven't seen any statistics, but I think a portion of people with histamine intolerance may have developed it from mold exposure. Many of the high histamine food lists have overlap with the mold allergy lists as well. Several low histamine recipes include coconut as an ingredient. After taking coconut out of my diet and then doing a three day (actually one day) reintroduction, I developed a bad reaction to coconut. So, coconut is not an option for me. It causes breathing issues and makes my throat feel like it's closing up. Coconut is a common allergen, but it's not included on the popular 8 food allergy lists. So, it's often disregarded. It's hard to find recipes these days that don't use coconut. Also, many recipes use maple syrup as a sugar substitute. I tend to prefer using various sugar options and do use natural cane sugars as well. I also often prefer portion control over simple ingredient substitution techniques. Many sugar substitutes are no better than raw sugar and can even be less safe for people with allergies and intolerances. For instance, stevia which is great for some people can be an issue for anyone who has intolerances to cactus.

There are plenty of allergy recipes sites but they typically only deal with the 8 major food allergies recognized by the FDA. It's very hard to find recipes that take corn or mold allergies into account. I also notice a lot of trends in recipes throughout the decades. A certain eating style or diet becomes popular and then all the recipes tend to use the same groups of ingredients. If you can't eat some of those ingredients, you're out of luck. They tend to be used over and over again in recipe collections.

It's important, especially with dietary restrictions, to attempt to add new food sources that can replace the nutrition you're missing from eliminating or limiting other sources. There are many new foods available in stores. However, many recipe collections tend to stick with just a certain subset and use them over and over.

I've slowly removed many of the high histamine foods from my diet as well as many of the sources of mold (such as additives and vitamins grown on mold mediums). So, I've been unknowingly eating a lower histamine diet for years. It doesn't match other histamine lists perfectly but it does remove many of the high histamine foods. I'm also always looking for more simple, healthy, easy to make recipes to add to my repertoire. I've been through thousands of recipe books and am always looking up recipes online. I'm lucky if I find one recipe in hundreds or even thousands that I actually find suitable.

What surprised me most was how few low histamine recipe books and online recipe collections exist. Some are behind a pay wall or require you buying a book or borrowing a book from your local library. The bad part is even if you pay for access, you may find more of the same kinds of recipes that you just can't eat because they include ingredients that aren't safe for you.

The idea struck me that it might be useful to create a free source for low histamine recipes such as a Creative Commons licensed ebook that people could share. At this point, I'm left wondering if it would actually be useful to anyone else besides me. Would be interested to find out if there is a need for this kind of reference or whether it's just something I'd like to have for myself. So, would a project like this be worth pursuing and would it be helpful to others or is it just a good personal project that doesn't need to be shared? If you have favorite low histamine recipes you can share, I'd love to read about them.