Joslyn's Blog Spot - Food and drink that can give you the sniffles

I always knew that bread didn't go down too well and that milk always caused a little extra mucus production, but I never quite knew why sometimes after eating or drinking, I would sneeze incessantly for minutes and maybe even hours. A few years ago, after a particularly bad spell and nearly passing out on a train, I decided to investigate further into possible food intolerances and how they affect people.

First of all, it's important to distinguish between a food intolerance and a food allergy. A food intolerance is a digestive system response, that occurs when something in a food irritates a person's digestive system or when a person is unable to properly digest or break down a food. A food allergy is an immune system response, when the body mistakes an ingredient in food (usually a protein - often milk, nuts) as harmful, and creates a defense system to fight it.

At the time of my near-passing-out episode, I was eating a high volume of tuna - naughty for the mercury levels alone! Upon further investigation, and memory recall of other foods that caused sneezing and general cold-like symptoms, I realised that wine, beer, cheese, olives and some cured meat were all offenders from time to time.

I soon discovered that many foods either contain histamines (your body's natural inflammatory response to nasties in your system), or indeed create or cause a histamine reaction in the body. Sometimes you can have high levels within your system and sneeze at the very sniff of beer (that actually happened, about 100 sneezes, it was embarrassing) and on other occasions you remain unaffected. When there are high levels of histamines in the body, the usual symptoms of an intolerance (bloating, stomach irritation) can be replaced with a milder version of the symptoms of an allergy: rash or hives, nausea, stomach pain, itchy skin, shortness of breath, chest pain, swelling of the airways to the lungs, anaphylaxis, and diarrhoea. However removing some or all of the foods below for a couple of weeks, will help to get the system back to normal.

So here are the foods below, a lot of them my favourites, so my two weeks without them wasn't a happy time:

Foods that cause histamine to be released in a major way:

Egg white; shellfish; fish, especially deep sea such as tuna; strawberries, pineapple; tomatoes;
chocolate; alcohol, especially wine and beer

Histamine-rich foods that also cause histamine to be released:

Fish, especially deep sea and small fish (anchovies, etc);
Tomatoes;
Canned and processed foods with MSG, sulfites, benzoates;
Yeast extract & yeast;
Fermented beverages - wines, beer, vermouth; fermented condiments - soy sauce, miso, vinegars, oriental sauces

Foods that cause histamine to be released in a lesser way:

Dried fruit;
Peanuts (roasted);
Soybeans and soy products (tofu, etc);
Whole wheat, barley, oat, rye;
Seaweed;
Spirulina;
Canned and processed foods with MSG flavor enhancer or preservatives such as sulfites, benzoates and parabens.

Histamine-rich foods:

Cheeses, especially aged or molded ones such as bleu cheese;
Cultured dairy products such as yogurt;
Avocado, spinach, eggplant;
Legumes, especially soy and roasted peanuts;
Jams and preserves;
Nuts;
Fermented foods - sauerkraut, sour cream, vinegar, ciders

So if you find yourself affected by any of the above just remove them frim your diet for a while and you should be able to tolerate them again in small amounts.

Have a good week all!

Jos