Histamine Levels in Food: What Affects Them?

Histamine develops in food when histidine, an amino acid, is broken down by bacteria and converted into histamine. Thus, the longer food has been in contact with the specific bacteria that do this conversion, the more histamine present in the food.

Food can thus be high in histidine, not histamine, but end up being high histamine.

Food might also be fermented with bacteria that produce histamine.

It might also matter how you cook foods. A study¹ found:

Grilled seafood is higher histamine than raw or boiled seafood
Grilled meat is higher histamine than boiled meat
It didn’t matter which method of cooking eggs was used, histamine levels remained basically the same
Fried vegetables contain more histamine than raw vegetables
Fermented foods had the same overall histamine levels after being boiled

References

1.
Chung BY, Park SY, Byun YS, et al. Effect of Different Cooking Methods on Histamine Levels in Selected Foods. Ann Dermatol. Published online 2017:706. doi:10.5021/ad.2017.29.6.706