Hello everyone this is Monica Reinagle and you're listening to the

nutrition divas quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous

thanks for tuning in.

Last week, I talked about histamine intolerance,

a condition that's been gaining a lot of traction lately

in the alternative medicine and holistic nutrition communities. And the idea behind it is that and the

idea behind it is that some people are especially sensitive

to histamines found in certain foods.

Although histamine intolerance is not technically an allergy, a low histamine diet might relieve

pesky and otherwise unexplained allergy-like symptoms, like itching, wheezing, sinusitis, nausea, and skin rashes in those with heightened sensitivity.

The challenge, as I explained last week, is that there's a lot of conflicting information about the histamine content of foods.

So this week, I'm going to try to clarify and hopefully simplify which foods you might want

to avoid if you're inclined to test this theory on yourself.

At first glance, the list of high histamine foods that you'll come across on the internet can seem somewhat random,

sourcrowd, pepperoni, and strawberries.

And you'll also notice a lot of foods that we generally think of as healthy, such as fish

and yogurt listed there.

I think these lists will make more sense to you once you understand where histamines come from.

Most of the histamine content in food is the result of bacterial activity.

Now you might not like to think about this, but bacteria are almost always present in raw meat and fish.

And in fact, that's what gives raw meat such a short shelf life.

The bacteria eventually cause the meat to spoil.

...