Is cherry high in histamine?
Cherries are low in histamine: tested samples had none and little of other amines, and only 1 of 10 published low-histamine diets excludes them.
- Histamine
- Not detected
- Other amines
- Low
- Liberator
- Not on the lists we use
- DAO blocker
- No evidence
What each source says
| Source | Verdict | What it says, in our words |
|---|---|---|
| Lab measurements, Spain 1 | Measured | No detectable histamine or tyramine in 5 samples; low putrescine. |
| 10 published low-histamine diets 2 | 1 of 10 excludes cherries. | |
| SIGHI food list 3 | See source | See SIGHI's own list for its rating. |
Measured histamine
| Food tested | Samples | Histamine | Other amines |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cherries sold in Spain 1 (Table 2) | 5 | not detected | putrescine mean 3.08 mg/kg (2.35–3.46); tyramine not detected |
mg/kg = milligrams of histamine per kilogram of food. "Not detected" means below the laboratory's detection limit.
How freshness and processing change it
Our rating is for fresh cherries. Plain frozen cherries are a reasonable stand-in, since freezing slows the bacterial activity that forms histamine, though they were not measured. Dried, candied or maraschino cherries and cherry juice were not measured either; check the label and treat them as unrated.
No histamine detected; low putrescine. (measured)
Not measured; freezing slows bacterial activity. (estimate)
Why we rate cherry 0
Cherries are one of the fruits where the measurements and the published lists mostly agree. When a University of Barcelona team tested five samples of cherries sold in Spain, none had detectable histamine or tyramine. Putrescine, the amine that some researchers think may compete with histamine for the gut enzyme diamine oxidase (DAO), averaged 3.08 mg/kg and never went above 3.46 mg/kg. For comparison, bananas in the same study averaged 37.94 mg/kg of putrescine.
Only one of the ten low-histamine diets reviewed in 2021 excludes cherries, which places them with grapes, apricots and milk at the bottom of that review's exclusion chart. None of the sources we use lists cherries as a suggested histamine liberator.
We rate fresh cherries 0, "low". That is the lowest rating on our scale. It means the evidence we have gives no reason to expect a histamine problem; it does not mean no one can react to them. Individual tolerance varies, and food intolerance symptoms can have causes other than histamine.
Cherries make a practical swap for fruits with more open questions, such as banana, strawberry or avocado, when you are building a list for the first weeks of a low-histamine diet. Their season is short, so frozen cherries are worth knowing about. Our rating is for fresh cherries, and plain frozen cherries are a reasonable stand-in, because freezing slows the bacterial activity that forms histamine in food, although frozen cherries were not measured. Dried, candied or maraschino cherries and cherry juice were not measured in the studies we use, and processed versions often contain other ingredients, so check the label and treat them as unrated until they are.
Questions about cherry and histamine
Are dried cherries low histamine?
Dried cherries were not measured in the studies we use, so we do not rate them. Our rating covers fresh cherries only.
Evidence behind this page
Sources
- 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 (Sánchez-Pérez S et al. 2018)
- 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 et al. 2021)
- Swiss Interest Group Histamine Intolerance (SIGHI). Food compatibility list for histamine intolerance. histaminintoleranz.ch (accessed November 2026), 2026. Link (Swiss Interest Group Histamine Intolerance (SIGHI) 2026)