What is histamine intolerance(HIT)? And what is histamine for that matter?
Ok, so this is the quick, non-scientific version of histamine intolerance:
Histamine is a building block in our body, it’s in every food (some foods have high amounts, some have low amounts), it’s a part of everyday life.
The problem comes when you have a build-up of histamine, because you’ve consumed way too much of it, your body is not processing it correctly, or some other reasons you can read about here.
It’s like you have a histamine bucket or bathtub, and it can fill up to a certain level and everything is fine. Except your bathtub drain is clogged and when you leave the faucet running your bathtub fills up and water starts spilling all over the floor. That’s when a histamine reaction occurs, and it can look a lot like an allergic reaction. It can cause hives, itching, rashes, headaches, congestion, emotional reactions, sleep problems, and the list goes on.
If you want the science and more details about histamine intolerance check out these articles/websites:
https://www.healthline.com/health/histamine-intolerance
The symptoms of HIT are best combated with eating a low histamine diet. That’s what I’m here to help you do!
You probably noticed that most of the articles above give a list of high histamine foods and low histamine foods. The food list I chose to follow is the Swiss Histamine Food List (SIGHI Food Compatibility List). I felt it was the most comprehensive and I loved that it rated foods based on the symptoms it gave and how much histamine is in the food. It makes it easier to know what foods to cut out and which to reintroduce first.
All of the recipes on my site are given a histamine rating based off the list above.
This is how I rank my recipes:
- Histamine Level: 0 = made only from ingredients well tolerated, food with low histamine content, and no symptoms expected.
- Histamine Level: 1 = made with one ingredient with a higher histamine content, and all other ingredients are “safe”, low in histamine, or level 0. Minor symptoms may occur.
At this time I will not be posting any recipes above a Histamine Level 1. My main focus with this blog is to help provide recipes for the elimination phase of the HIT low histamine diet. This is the phase I am currently in with Rosie.