Low-histamine spices
Spices are the one group in our sources with a clean, if limited, result. A 2020 review by a University of Barcelona team reported histamine by food category for products sold in Spain, and its "Spices" group, 12 samples, had no detectable histamine at all: the mean, the median, the lowest and the highest values were all below the detection limit. For comparison, the same table gives an average of 2.82 mg/kg for 98 vegetable samples, with a highest sample of 69.72 mg/kg, 0.45 mg/kg for 41 samples of nuts and 0.12 mg/kg for 28 cereal samples. Legumes, fresh meat and unripened cheese also had none.
The limit is that the review does not name the twelve spices. We cannot tell you that ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, black pepper, chilli or paprika was among them, and the table reports histamine only, not the other amines. So each spice page here is labelled "measured as a food group", says plainly that the spice itself was not named, and stays hidden from search engines until a dietitian has reviewed it.
The way spices are made supports the result. They are dried plant parts, not protein foods and not fermented, and the studies we use trace high histamine in food mainly to bacteria acting on spoiled protein foods and to fermentation. No spice appears among the foods charted as excluded by the ten published low-histamine diets in the team's 2021 review.
Fresh forms are rated separately, as estimates. Fresh ginger and turmeric root were not measured; fresh chillies were not either, though bell peppers, from the same plant genus, had no detectable histamine in 17 samples.
Where spices turn up in histamine questions, it is usually because of what they are mixed with. Chorizo is seasoned with paprika, but it is a dry-fermented sausage, a group that averaged 21.57 mg/kg of histamine in 424 samples. Some chilli sauces and curry pastes are fermented or contain fermented soy or fish. Mulled wine is wine. Each spice page notes the products to check.
Sources
- Comas-Basté O, Sánchez-Pérez S, Veciana-Nogués MT, Latorre-Moratalla M, Vidal-Carou MDC. Histamine Intolerance: The Current State of the Art. Biomolecules 10(8):1181, 2020. doi:10.3390/biom10081181
- Sánchez-Pérez S, Comas-Basté O, Veciana-Nogués MT, Latorre-Moratalla ML, Vidal-Carou MC. Low-Histamine Diets: Is the Exclusion of Foods Justified by Their Histamine Content? Nutrients 13(5):1395, 2021. doi:10.3390/nu13051395
- Sánchez-Pérez S, Comas-Basté O, Rabell-González J, Veciana-Nogués MT, Latorre-Moratalla ML, Vidal-Carou MC. Biogenic Amines in Plant-Origin Foods: Are They Frequently Underestimated in Low-Histamine Diets? Foods 7(12):205, 2018. doi:10.3390/foods7120205