Low Histamine Food List ← Back to the list

Our sources and method

How this list is built

No single histamine list gets everything right, and they often disagree. So every food here goes through the same four steps before it gets a color.

  1. Step 1

    Gather the lists

    5 published lists, plus the research behind them
  2. Step 2

    Compare them

    253 foods where the lists disagreed, each one settled by fixed rules
  3. Step 3

    Weigh the factors

    6 things checked beyond the histamine itself
  4. Step 4

    My final call

    1 by 1 every change approved by hand, by someone who lives with this
940 foodsin 15 categories
487 Usually fine226 Depends on you227 Cut first
1

We start with the published lists

We don't copy one list. We read the main ones side by side, along with the research they draw on. SIGHI's list is the anchor: it's the most detailed, it's maintained by a patient group in Switzerland, and it's the one many doctors and dietitians in Europe hand out.

Main sourceSIGHI food compatibility listSwiss Interest Group Histamine Intolerance, edition of August 2024
Histamine Intolerance UKUK patient resource and food guide
Johns Hopkins / Oshi HealthClinical guidance on a low histamine diet
Mast Cell 360Food lists for histamine and mast cell issues
Season HealthDietitian-written low histamine food guide
Published researchReviews and studies on histamine in food, listed at the bottom of this page
2

We compare every food, and settle disagreements by rules

Every food on the list was checked against SIGHI's ratings. In our last full review there were 253 foods where the two didn't match. Each one was settled the same way, so no food gets a rating just because it suited us.

If we were more lenient than SIGHIWe move to SIGHI's rating, unless two separate checks both find real evidence for the lower one.
Our ratingSIGHI's
If we were stricter than SIGHIWe move toward SIGHI's rating, but never lower than the evidence supports.
Our ratingToward SIGHI
When the evidence is thinThe more cautious rating wins. It's easier to add a food back than to recover from a bad week.
When a food is a version of anotherIt follows the food it's made from, so similar foods never contradict each other.
3

We look at more than the histamine number

Histamine content alone doesn't explain why some foods cause trouble. These are the things we weigh for every food:

Histamine contentHow much histamine the food itself tends to carry.
Histamine releaseFoods that make your body release its own histamine. 69 on this list.
DAO blockingDrinks that slow the enzyme that breaks histamine down, like alcohol and true teas. 39 on this list.
ProcessingCured, smoked, pickled, aged or fermented foods can never be rated low, whatever the base food is.
Everyday formEach food is rated the way you'd normally buy and eat it: fresh chicken, not chicken left in the fridge for three days.
Freshness and ripenessWhere age changes the picture (leftovers, ripe bananas, canned fish), the food's note says so.
4

Then I make the final call

Every proposed change goes to me, one food at a time, and only the ones I approve make it onto the list. In the last full review that was 144 proposed rating changes and 95 proposed changes to the release and DAO notes. Where my own long experience with a food is clear, it counts. Where it isn't, the sources and the cautious rule win.

I've lived with histamine intolerance for 30 years. I've tracked what I eat and how I react for years, and I've tested more foods on myself than I can count. I built this list because I wanted one I could actually trust.

Michael Eisenwasser, who compiles this list

A few of my calls

  • Usually fine Pecans
  • Usually fine Chicken broth (fresh homemade)
  • Cut first Yogurt
  • Cut first Kefir
  • Depends on you Peanuts
  • Depends on you Cashews

And it keeps getting checked

I also make histamine intolerance apps that thousands of people use, and they send feedback all the time about what they ate and how they felt. Together with messages through this site, that feedback regularly sends foods back for another review. When someone asked about bell pepper, we found a study that measured no histamine in 17 samples, and it moved to low.

Every food's short description also goes through a separate fact check, and anything that doesn't hold up gets fixed by hand.

If you think a rating is wrong, tell us. Reports from people living with this are one of the best sources we have.

Sources

The food lists above, plus the research we read when a rating or a description needs a closer look.

  1. SIGHI Food Compatibility List, Swiss Interest Group Histamine Intolerance (2024 edition).
  2. Maintz & Novak (2007). Histamine and histamine intolerance. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
  3. Comas-Basté et al. (2020). Histamine Intolerance: The Current State of the Art. Biomolecules.
  4. Hrubisko et al. (2021). Histamine Intolerance: The More We Know the Less We Know. A Review. Nutrients.
  5. Jochum (2024). Histamine Intolerance: Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Beyond. Nutrients.
  6. Schnedl et al. (2019). Non-gastrointestinal symptoms in histamine intolerance.
  7. Schnedl et al. (2019). Diamine oxidase supplementation improves symptoms in patients with histamine intolerance.
  8. Sánchez-Pérez et al. (2018). Biogenic amines in plant-origin foods: are they frequently underestimated in low-histamine diets? Foods (the bell pepper measurements).

Last full review: September 2026List updated: November 2, 2026Not medical advice