The (liquid) histamine cleanse

juicing for histamine intolerance

Today’s lunch!

This book is now available for purchase here! 

Busy, busy bee here in Egypt. This may look like a holiday but I’m here in Dahab (1 hr from Sharm el Sheikh) shooting my meditation course and finishing up photography on my first 100% liquid book (The Histamine Detox) here. (There’s a couple more surprises and freebies being developed – I’ll share more soon – sign up to my mailing list so you don’t miss out!)

Why liquid? Dr. Fuhrman, among others, points out that liquids put less stress on the digestive tract as well as requiring less enzymes to be processed. It’s also what SO many of you have written in to request!

I’m struggling with something though:

Contrary to the impression the name of this website imparts, I do not believe that a low histamine diet is a sound approach for histamine intolerance, mast cell activation or mastocytosis. My personal diet is what I call a histamine-balanced approach. I know it’s very tempting to run out and try to eliminate ALL histamine from your diet the minute you’re diagnosed (or at least convince yourself that you are), but let’s just consider physiology for a moment: the body needs histamine for wakefulness, to run the immune system, to keep our brain working, to control appetite and metabolism (that’s just for starters), so what do we think might happen if we deprive the body of dietary histamine that is certainly involved in these processes? One theory is that the body will begin to produce more endogenous histamine, meaning mast cells will degranulate and dump histamine, along with other inflammatory molecules into the body.

Let’s consider a possible alternative: we continue providing the body with a healthier supply of dietary histamine, from clean, high nutrient sources, along with a plethora of antihistamine and anti-inflammatory foods to help it all balance out. This is one of my favourite light meals that’s a good example…

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Raw zucchini (courgette) noodles with avocado sauce (coriander, parsley, garlic, onions, olive oil). I’ll have this for lunch. The higher histamine of the avocado is, in my view, balanced out by its anti-inflammatory properties (yup, weirdly enough a high histamine food can also have anti-inflammatory properties – balance is found all through nature), in addition to the mast cell stabilising and antihistamine properties of the fresh herbs, garlic and onion.

Now, back to a low histamine diet. Eating a piece of lamb with rice every day for years didn’t yield the same results as a histamine-balanced diet for me.

Those results: being told I’m now in the best health of my life and finally being truly free to travel the world without the fears that plagued me these last few years (where will I eat, will I get sick, what will happen if I have an accidental splash of tomato).

I’m sure that a huge part of the process was no longer demonising foods and not being afraid to eat. I lost that fear by gradually re-introduing higher histamine foods in small amounts until my body accepted they no longer posed a threat to me. I do know they did at some point – anaphylaxis is no freaking joke (as many of you know!), but when my body finally healed, thanks to a high nutrient diet my brain sadly hadn’t yet caught up with the healing I had lavished on my body, and so I continued to suffer. Meditation was a huge help to me here, as was re-training my amygdala.

So, why am I writing a histamine detox book?

There are times in life where we just need to kill the inflammation, be it histamine induced, or caused by any of the other inflammation spawning elements released from mast cells when the body is freaking out. I consider this book to be an inflammation busting cleanse, that just also happens to be low histamine as well.

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I practice what I preach man – here I am getting juicy on the beach.

For example, I’m on a cleanse right now. I’m getting tons of antihistamine and anti-inflammatory juice into me, and getting my histamine from various marine sources (apologies vegans, I was one of your tribe but my body functions better this way), oily nuts (macadamia, walnut), seeds, avocado, aubergine and tomatoes. I’m including these high histamine foods because they add a number of vital nutrients and phytonutrients that would otherwise be missing from my diet. These things, according to Dr. Fuhrman’s wisdom, will help me heal in the long term:

“You can’t put this problem in a vacuum. Such as avoiding histamine containing foods, on a standard deficient and toxic diet. The body works in conjunction with thousands of complicated chemical reactions, and only with superior nutrition can the histamine sensitivity be better controlled. So exposure to thousands of phytochemicals and even to a low dose of histamine in their diet is good, not bad and can offer hope of getting better over the years to come. ” Dr Fuhrman. 

It’s certainly working, as you can probably tell from the pictures!

All that being said, I believe there’s a place for a high nutrient low histamine diet for a few weeks/months. It just breaks my heart over and over to get emails from people who have been living on the same five foods for years (as I was), but also so gratifying to see them recover.

Because, as I tell people who consult with me – it might feel like you’re getting nowhere, but trust me, we ALL get there in the end.

Here’s wishing you happy holidays and continued health, no matter where you are on your journey.

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The Anti-cookbook, while it doesn’t treat any conditions, due to its high nutrient, antihistamine and anti-inflammatory ingredients, has been instrumental in helping me feed myself on a limited diet. It features a six page list of antihistamine and anti-inflammatory foods. It comes in regular and Paleo. 

The Low Oxalate Cookbook features antihistamine and anti-inflammatory rich recipes. 

Don’t miss the Low Histamine Beauty Survival Guide for non-toxic beauty tips, the skinny on histamine releasing (mast cell degranulating) beauty ingredients, antihistamine and anti-inflammatory beauty alternatives and the top brands natural brands I’ve found.

Take a peek at my other low histamine and antihistamine cookbooks for more high nutrient recipes.

If you’ve found this information useful I’d appreciate your support (at no extra cost to you!) – please check out my online store for your health foods, supplements, kitchen items and beauty product purchases. Affiliate sales through my online store go towards maintaining the website, funding travel to interviews and purchasing all the lovely foods for my free online recipes. You’ll find these items in the “Shop with us” drop down menu on my homepage.  

Please don’t forget antihistamine, pain killing foods can still hurt us, so please always check with your doctor before adding new foods to your diet. 

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Welcome!

Yasmina was an award-winning broadcast journalist with a decade of experience covering war zones for CNN and the BBC. She devoted her journalism skills to researching and writing about histamine. Click here to learn about her. Each post is carefully and fully referenced with the latest scientific research. Not sure where to start? Here’s a four week meal plan and overall Histamine Reset.

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