Is coconut high in histamine?
Coconut is probably low in histamine, but no study we use has measured it. We rate fresh coconut flesh 0 as an estimate: it is not fermented or aged, and it is not on a 2021 chart of foods excluded by 10 published diets.
- Histamine
- Not measured
- Other amines
- Not measured
- Liberator
- Not on the lists we use
- DAO blocker
- No evidence
What each source says
| Source | Verdict | What it says, in our words |
|---|---|---|
| 10 published low-histamine diets (2021 review) 1 | Coconut is not on the review's chart of excluded foods. | |
| Review of low-histamine diets, 2020 2 | Foods that can contain high histamine are fish and meat spoiled by bacteria, and fermented products. | |
| SIGHI food list 3 | See source | See SIGHI's own list for its rating. |
How freshness and processing change it
Once a coconut is opened, the fresh flesh behaves like any cut fresh food: keep it covered in the fridge and use it soon. Desiccated and shredded coconut, coconut milk and cream, coconut water and coconut oil are made and stored differently and were not measured in the studies we use, so this rating does not cover them.
Not measured; not fermented or aged. (estimate)
Why we rate coconut 0
Coconut is a food that most low-histamine guides pass over, and the studies we use pass over it too. It does not appear in the 2018 review's tables of fruits and nuts, which combine the Spanish market with data from other studies, or in the 2021 table of foods sold in Spain. So we label it "not measured", and the rating here is our estimate.
People often file coconut with nuts, so it is worth saying what the nut data show and why we do not borrow them. The 2021 review found no histamine in 47 samples of nuts sold in Spain, while a 2020 review from the same team, pooling 41 nut samples, found an average of 0.45 mg/kg with a highest value of 11.86 mg/kg. Two of the ten published low-histamine diets exclude nuts. But the nuts measured one by one in the 2018 review were almonds, chestnuts, hazelnuts, pistachios and sunflower seeds, and coconut is the fruit of a palm, not a tree nut in the kitchen sense. We do not treat those figures as coconut figures.
Our estimate starts from how histamine gets into food. It forms mainly when bacteria break down histidine, so it builds up in fish and meat kept too long and in fermented foods such as aged cheese, cured sausage and wine. Fresh coconut flesh is not fermented or aged, and it is not a protein food in the way fish or meat is. On that basis we rate fresh coconut 0, "low". Coconut is not on the 2021 chart of foods excluded by ten diets, and none of our sources names it as a suspected "histamine liberator".
This page covers coconut flesh, fresh or as you find it inside the shell. Desiccated and shredded coconut, coconut milk and cream, coconut water and coconut oil are processed differently and were not measured, so this rating does not carry over to them. If you react to coconut, an allergy is a separate possibility worth raising with your doctor, since it has its own tests.
Questions about coconut and histamine
Is coconut high in histamine?
No study we use has measured it. We rate fresh coconut flesh 0 as an estimate, because it is not fermented or aged, the usual routes for histamine to build up, and it is not on the 2021 chart of foods excluded by ten published diets.
Does coconut count as a nut on a low-histamine diet?
Coconut is the fruit of a palm, and the nut samples in the studies we use do not include it, so we do not apply nut figures to it. For what it is worth, nuts sold in Spain had no detectable histamine in 47 samples.
Evidence behind this page
- No study in our sources reports histamine or other amines in coconut, and coconut is not on the 2021 review's chart of foods excluded by ten published low-histamine diets. 1
- Foods that can contain high histamine are microbiologically altered foods such as fish and meat, and fermented products whose bacteria can form amines. 2
- Nuts sold in Spain had no detectable histamine across 47 samples; two of ten published diets exclude nuts. 1
- A 2020 pooled figure for 41 nut samples gives an average of 0.45 mg/kg of histamine and a highest value of 11.86 mg/kg. 2
- The nuts and seeds measured one by one in the 2018 review were almonds, chestnuts, hazelnuts, pistachios and sunflower seeds, plus a mixed "nuts" entry. 4
Sources
- 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)
- 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 (Comas-Basté O et al. 2020)
- 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)
- 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)