Is rye bread high in histamine?

Why we rate rye bread 2

Rye bread was not measured in any of the studies we use, and neither was rye flour. The University of Barcelona team's survey of foods sold in Spain covers white and wholemeal wheat bread, both with no detectable histamine, but not rye. For rye bread, how the loaf was raised matters more than the grain, and that varies more than with any other bread.

Many dark rye breads, pumpernickel and the dense rye loaves of Germany, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe are made with a sourdough starter, a culture of wild yeasts and lactic acid bacteria. Lighter deli-style rye loaves are often mostly wheat flour with some rye, raised with baker's yeast. The ingredient list usually tells you which: look for sourdough, leaven or a starter culture.

The fermentation is the concern, not the rye. Histamine in food is formed mainly by bacteria breaking down the amino acid histidine, and the team's 2020 review notes that some lactic acid bacteria do this in cheese, fermented meat, fermented vegetables and fermented drinks, depending on the species and strain. A 2024 laboratory study of kisra, a Sudanese flatbread made from naturally fermented sorghum, found histamine rising from none in the batter to 14.76 mg/kg in the baked bread, and none at all when selected lactic acid bacteria were used as the starter. That is a different grain and a laboratory recipe, so it shows that sourdough fermentation can form histamine, not how much a rye loaf contains.

The grain itself is unlikely to be the problem. Every cereal the Barcelona team tested had no histamine, and their 2018 review explains that cereals in principle contain no amines other than putrescine, which comes from the plant itself. Rye is not on the 2021 chart of foods excluded by ten published low-histamine diets.

We rate rye bread 2, "moderate", as an estimate, because dark rye and pumpernickel are commonly made with sourdough, and this page says plainly that it was not measured. Rye bread raised with yeast alone follows the same reasoning as wholemeal bread, so we rate that form 0 as an estimate. If you want a sandwich bread with measured data behind it, wholemeal bread, with no histamine in six loaves, is the closest swap. Rye crispbreads are covered on the crackers page.

Questions about rye bread and histamine

Is rye bread low in histamine?

It was not measured. Rye bread made with sourdough is fermented by lactic acid bacteria, which can form histamine, so we rate it moderate as an estimate. Rye bread raised with yeast alone is closer to wholemeal bread, which had none.

Is pumpernickel high in histamine?

It was not measured. Traditional pumpernickel is often made with rye sourdough, so we rate it like sourdough rye bread, moderate as an estimate. Check the label for sourdough or leaven.

Evidence behind this page

• White and wholemeal bread sold in Spain had no detectable histamine; rye was not among the cereals tested (Table 3). ¹
• Cereals contain no amines other than putrescine, which has a physiological origin (Section 3.3). ¹
• In naturally fermented kisra, a sorghum sourdough flatbread made in the laboratory, histamine rose from none to 6.64 mg/kg in the first 24 hours of fermentation and reached 14.76 mg/kg after baking (Section 3.1.3, Figure 3A); with selected lactic acid bacteria starters no histamine formed (Section 3.3.3, Figure 5). ²
• The ability of bacteria to form histamine is species- and strain-dependent, and various lactic acid bacteria form histamine in fermented foods (Section 3). ³
• Rye bread does not appear among the foods charted as excluded by ten published low-histamine diets. ⁴

Sources

1. 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)
2. Hassan AAA, Jin YH, Mah JH. Effects of Lactic Acid Bacteria on Reducing the Formation of Biogenic Amines and Improving the Formation of Antioxidant Compounds in Traditional African Sourdough Flatbread Fermentation. Antioxidants 13(7):844, 2024. doi:10.3390/antiox13070844 (Hassan AAA et al. 2024)
3. 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)
4. 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)
5. 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)