Is coffee high histamine? (Please say no...)

Some thoughts and tips on coffee and histamine intolerance. We all love coffee and would find it haaaard to give up. But some respected lists do list coffee as potentially high-histamine or histamine-releasing. In addition, on some of the histamine intolerance forums, coffee is something that some people seem to struggle with. If you would love to carry on drinking coffee on your low-histamine diet, here are some things which help;

1. Drink organic coffee where possible. First I started drinking coffee made with Bulletproof Coffee Beans, a supposed low-toxin, low-mold organic coffee grown by reputable farmers. Then I started to notice other organic and low-toxin coffees available seemed to lessen my symptoms - there are plenty of brands out there if you search for low-toxin coffee. Current favourite in the UK is Mindful Coffee (a nice buttery taste).

2. Consider avoiding coffee capsules and coffee machines that use capsules. This is quite a shame as I particularly like the ‘crema’ that you get from a Nespresso coffee. But I have found that these capsules increase my histamine symptoms. We were on holiday last week, and we had a coffee capsule machine in our room. What a treat! But by the end of the week I was convinced these capsules were increasing my symptoms. Every coffee I’d feel bunged up and blocked quite quickly. Attractive right? Who knows why? It might be the plastic in the capsules getting heated to high temperatures, or something else. Either way, a freshly brewed coffee seems to work better for me than capsules.

3. Weird as it may sound, don’t leave your coffee lying around for a long time before drinking it. Apart from the fact it’ll be tepid when you drink it (never ideal), some say this gives the coffee the chance to acquire more bacteria/histamine as it sits, in a similar way that leftovers would.

As you can see, when it comes to histamine levels, not all coffee is created equal.

We asked our thousands of histamine intolerant instagram followers - is coffee high histamine or is coffee low histamine? In a very unscientific poll, 55% gave it the thumbs up, which means a large 45% don’t get on with coffee.

So you might want to try these tips. And as you drink your lovely organic low-histamine coffee, why not check out these dietary tips to reduce your histamine levels in other ways and start to feel even better.