Is sweet potato high in histamine?
Sweet potato has not been tested for histamine; we estimate it low, as a fresh, unfermented root, like carrot and potato, which had none in lab tests.
- 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Related vegetables measured in Spain 1 | No histamine in potato or carrot, only traces in pumpkin. Sweet potato was not tested. | |
| 10 published low-histamine diets 2 | Sweet potato is not on the review's chart of foods the diets exclude. | |
| SIGHI food list 3 | See source | See SIGHI's own list for its rating. |
How freshness and processing change it
Sweet potatoes keep for weeks in a cool, dry place, but no study we use followed amines in them during storage. Cooking neither adds nor removes histamine. Mash or soup kept in the fridge for days is a stored cooked dish and is rated separately below.
Not measured. (estimate)
Not measured. Storage time gives bacteria time to act, and reheating does not remove histamine. (estimate)
Why we rate sweet potato 0
Sweet potato has not been tested for histamine in the studies we use; it does not appear in any of their tables, so this page is an estimate. Despite the name, it is not a kind of potato. Potatoes belong to the nightshade family with tomato and eggplant, while sweet potato is the root of a plant in the morning glory family. The potato figures therefore do not transfer, though they are worth knowing: a University of Barcelona team found no histamine in ten potatoes sold in Spain, with putrescine averaging 4.14 mg/kg.
What we can say comes from how sweet potato is grown and kept. It is a fresh root, not fermented, not aged and not a protein food. The studies we use trace high histamine in food mainly to bacteria acting on spoiled protein foods and to fermentation, and neither applies to a fresh sweet potato. The other root and orange vegetables that were measured came out low: carrot had no histamine in thirteen samples, and pumpkin had none or only traces, an average of 0.28 mg/kg in twelve samples and at most 1.90 mg/kg.
Sweet potato does not appear among the foods charted as excluded by the ten published low-histamine diets in the team's 2021 review. Because that chart covers only some foods, we say only that no diet in our sources excludes it.
Storage matters more than the cooking method. Histamine is not created by baking, roasting or boiling, and it is not destroyed by them either, so a freshly cooked sweet potato is the form our estimate covers. Mashed sweet potato or soup kept in the fridge for several days is a stored cooked dish: histamine can form in stored food, and it survives reheating. If you batch-cook, freeze portions you will not eat within a day.
We rate sweet potato 0, "low", as an estimate. It fills the same roles as potato, pumpkin and carrot: roasted, mashed, in soups and stews, or blended into a sauce in place of tomato. When a study measures sweet potato, its figures will replace this estimate.
Questions about sweet potato and histamine
Is a sweet potato high in histamine?
It has not been measured, so we cannot give a figure. As a fresh, unfermented root, we estimate it low, rated 0. Carrot and potato, the measured vegetables it most often replaces, had no detectable histamine.
Is sweet potato better than potato on a low-histamine diet?
We cannot say from the evidence. Potato was measured and had no detectable histamine in ten samples; sweet potato has not been tested. Both are rated 0, but only potato's rating rests on a measurement.
Evidence behind this page
- Sweet potato does not appear in the measurement tables of the 2018 or 2021 reviews. 12
- Ten potatoes and thirteen carrots sold in Spain had no detectable histamine; twelve pumpkins averaged 0.28 mg/kg (not detected to 1.90 mg/kg). 1
- Histamine in food is mainly formed by bacteria acting on the amino acid histidine, so foods spoiled by bacteria and fermented foods are the ones likely to accumulate it. 2
- Sweet potato does not appear among the foods charted as excluded by ten published low-histamine diets. 2
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)