You take antihistamines every day during the summer but may not know what histamine is and how it affects you. They are essential chemicals that help to get rid of dangerous diseases and contaminants in your body. When they work correctly, they serve a vital role in your immune system. Unfortunately, however, many people develop histamine intolerance and experience too much histamine production.
When this happens, you'll experience high levels of allergies that can be very frustrating and hard to tolerate. For example, allergens like pollen can take your low histamine levels and skyrocket them, causing you a runny nose, sneezing, and other reactions. If you develop these symptoms, you have histamine intolerance and may always need antihistamines during allergy seasons.
Thankfully, it is possible to create a low histamine diet to help manage this problem and minimize its impact on your life. This article will discuss more details about the importance of a diet that produces low histamine levels for histamine intolerance. And we'll include low histamine juicing recipes that will help to make this process easier for you. So please read on to get started with this process.
Table of Contents
A Look at What Raises Histamine Levels
Histamine levels are affected by many different elements, each of which varies according to the person involved. Most of the time, histamine is raised by exogenous or eternal influences. These are usually various types of foods that increase histamine levels naturally. It may also include allergens that naturally increase low histamine levels.
However, low histamine may also be affected by endogenous or internal sources. These include mast cells and DAO production. DAO (diamine oxidase) is an enzyme that breaks down the histamine you eat in foods. If your body's production of DAO is low, your histamine intolerance will be higher.
Low DAO production occurs for many reasons, including various medications, gastrointestinal diseases, bacterial overgrowth, and high-histamine foods. According to the International Society of DAY Deficiency, 90 drugs suppress DAO: 20% of the population likely already takes one or more of these drugs.
While histamine levels may also be increased by heat, strenuous exercise, stress, and even a complex menstrual cycle in women, diet and DAO suppression are the most common causes. As a result, it is critical to understand the various foods that raise and lower histamine levels and how a low histamine diet may help.
Ways Diet Affects Histamine Levels
Most people struggling with histamine levels likely have a diet that increases their levels. In addition, many may have undiagnosed food allergies that worsen this problem, as a food allergy may trigger higher histamine levels. Understanding your histamine level and the histamine foods you can eat and should not eat is critical for people interested in juicing or a vegan diet based on various simple recipes.
Before we talk about ways to change your diet to improve your histamine levels, it is vital to talk about those foods that naturally increase your histamine levels. High histamine food will naturally increase allergy symptom development and cause an excellent level of discomfort. Many people may not realize that they eat these foods just about every day – but many of us do.
Foods That Increase Your Histamine Levels
In this section, we'll discuss two different influences on your histamine levels – foods that naturally have a high level of these chemicals and items that naturally increase the production of these items in your body. Unfortunately, so often, people get into a diet situation where they eat many of these foods daily and experience high levels of histamine production that can be very upsetting.
First of all, let's talk about foods that have high levels of histamine. These include all dairy products, including milk, cheese, and more. Most fermented foods also fall under this heading, like sauerkraut or kimchi. Dried fruits also have high levels of histamine, mainly fruits we'll discuss more later. You also get a high level of histamines from many other foods. These include:
- Any recipe that may include eggplant
- Spinach, even when used on a salad
- Processed meats, especially those in a can
- Smoked meats that may have a long-lasting taste
- Avocado, even when used as a cream
- Shrimp, clams, and other shellfish.
Many of these foods also cause inflammation that may increase histamine levels and require an antihistamine to manage appropriately. Others cause digestive distress, such as indigestion, which may block DAO production and generate more problematic health issues. We'll talk more about foods that block DAO shortly. For now, let's take a look at foods that increase your histamine levels.
These items aren't necessarily high in histamines but do cause your body to increase its levels. We've already discussed fermented foods and how they impact your histamine. Items that may increase your histamine release include:
- Most types of alcohol drinks
- Meals wheat germ or beans
- Otherwise delicious and taste papaya
- Just about every type of citrus fruits
- Tomato-based procuts, including sauces
- Walnuts, almonds, and some other nuts
Likewise, many foods will naturally suppress DAO levels and make your histamine levels more intense. These include liquid-based foods, such as energy drinks, black tea, green tea, mate tea, and alcohol. Often, people who enjoy high alcohol levels suffer the most from histamine problems and need to change their diet to include anti inflammatory foods and anti inflammatory recipes with minimal histamine levels.
That said, if you want to enjoy alcohol, it is a good idea to consider white wine, vodka, or gin. While grapes are naturally low in histamines, red wines ultimately have a high level of these ingredients. Thankfully, whites have a much lower amount. And vodka and gin are both naturally relatively low in histamines, though they should still be consumed only rarely. Sulfite-free options, such as specialized wines, also help with this diet.
Thankfully, an elimination diet filled with many ingredients will help ensure that you don't run into complications with your health. Below, we'll look at a few low histamine foods and how you can integrate them into your meal plans. A histamine-friendly kitchen will eliminate excess histamine, minimize your histamine reaction, and use anti-inflammatory foods that help balance your digestion.
Low Histamine Foods You Need to Eat
Are you still searching for what to cook to create a diet that efficiently combats chronic inflammation and histamine issues? Then you need to consider the following ingredients for anti-inflammatory recipes. These foods can be integrated into unique options, like a low FODMAP diet to help cut back on allergy reactions and much more. Let's take a look at a few of the most common ingredients that may help you.
Focus on foods like fresh meat, freshly cut fish, various types of non-citrus fruit, celery, delicious fresh vegetables (like sweet potato and cabbage), cooking oils like olive oil, kale, foods rich in vitamin C, ingredients like ginger, lemon juices, various types of salad, eggs, coconut milk, and a well-balanced salad dressing. These ingredients allow you to create green and red antihistamine juice options and anti-inflammatory recipes that work for you.
If you love honey and want to decrease your histamine, Mauka honey is a great choice. It is naturally low in histamines and produces many benefits. Likewise, pure peanut butter is another low-histamine option great for people who want a rich and delicious diet. Pair that with low-histamine cranberries or cranberry juice, and you have a delightful meal.
It is essential to know that some foods that may cause indigestion or stomach difficulties may be low in histamines. For example, many types of onions (particularly red varieties) are naturally low in histamines. As a result, it is good to consider these foods if you want to create a meal plan or diet that makes the most sense for you and still tastes great.
And while some foods are not high in histamine, they may be known as a histamine liberator. For instance, apple cider vinegar doesn't have many histamines but may trigger histamine release from other foods. As a result, it is best to avoid this ingredient if you're trying to go on a low-histamine meal plan or if you suffer unnecessarily from allergic reactions.
Before changing your diet, you should know that lowering histamines must be done slowly over an extended period. While cutting out histamine-rich foods will quickly decrease many of your symptoms, long-term help is necessary. And exercise is not a good option because studies have found that it naturally increases histamine levels. Anyway, how do you fix histamine levels and intolerance in general?
Beyond eating the foods mentioned above, you can also increase your water intake because it is a natural antihistamine that helps make digestion easier. It is also essential to make sure you stay on a low-histamine diet for at least 1-3 months to clear your body. Doing so with the help of juicing and dietary changes will ensure that you get the high-quality support you need.
How Juicing Can Help
Juicing is the process of removing the liquids from vegetables and fruits and creating a drink that contains a high concentration of vitamins and minerals—when done correctly, juicing will concentrate these items in a way that you can't get with solid food. That said, you also won't get the fiber from these ingredients, which may be problematic if you're trying to have a balanced diet.
Nevertheless, an excellent juicing diet focused on low-histamine ingredients is a great option for people struggling with high histamine levels. When appropriately done, it is easy and inexpensive, cuts out inflammation-heavy items, and creates a simple way of managing this problem. Thankfully, it is something that most people should be able to easily handle with minimum challenges.
When you pair juicing with probiotic products with Lactobacillus rhamnose, Bifidobacterium infantis, or Bifodacterium longum, you can increase these benefits even more. A good probiotic helps to manage leaky gut problems and provides many natural histamine blockers that will work for you. Fasting may also help when paired with juicing, particularly with ingredients like lemon juice.
Recipes That May Work for You
Creating juicing recipes is pretty easy if you focus on the ingredients mentioned above and create unique combinations of elements that appeal to you. However, we're including two recipes that we found online that can help make this process easier for you. Create these juices to lower histamine and get many other benefits at the same time.
For instance, a red histamine drink including a combination of carrots, red beets, apples, watercress, turmeric, ginger, and lemon may be a good choice for many. Mix these ingredients according to your taste and serve cool. Remember – lemon is a liberator and should be used in low amounts. Lemon juice is probably a better option because it triggers this concern much less frequently.
We like this option because it helps people with insufficient nutrient intake or who don't like vegetables very much. In addition, juicing and adding them in this way helps make the foods easier to handle. Even better, it provides many antioxidants that can help fight diseases and other conditions.
A great green juice recipe to consider mixes green peas, iceberg lettuce, mango chunks, apple juice, filtered water, and chia seeds to produce a delicious smoothie that will cut back on your histamine levels. Chill this drink and serve it with a meal or use it to replace a meal.
This option is probably best for people who want to lose weight by replacing a meal with juicing. While some people may find that replacing a meal with juicing is a good option, this choice should only be made for a few months to minimize health issues.
Try to avoid alcohol in your drinks, as it worsens mast cell activation system. This condition can worsen your histamine troubles. Avoiding alcohol and sticking to this diet may help reverse many of the symptoms of mast cell activation syndrome, though professional help from a doctor may be necessary. You should also avoid foods or ingredients that may trigger allergies, as this is the most common cause of increased histamine production and decreased DAO production.
Take Control of Your Histamine
As you can see, it is possible to lower your histamine with juicing and take control of this problem. Using the recipes mentioned above gives you the best chance of managing this concern and staying healthy. So why not buy a juicer and some ingredients and get started? You may find yourself experiencing far fewer allergy problems and feeling much better about life in general.
Sources:
https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(00)32170-4/pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6306728/
https://www.deficitdao.org/en/dao-deficiency/origin-of-dao-deficiency/pharmacological-factors/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7463562/
https://www.women.com/shannon/lists/the-best-low-histamine-alcohol
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