What recipes should be in a low tyramine cookbook?
The important question is what foods and ingredients do you need to leave out of the recipes. This is not as simple as it sounds.
But I will tell you how to make it simple for just you with your individual needs.
What foods is tyramine in? See http://foodintolerancepro.com/category/tyramine-intolerance/detail-of-amines-in-food/
Tyramine was the first amine recognised as causing reactions. Aged cheeses were the main culprits. What are other amines beside tyramine? See the list on the link. These other amines besides tyramine were recorded as causing reactions. The important idea is that all aged foods were implicated.
Another key idea is that the more aged foods are, the worse the reactions.
And yet another very important idea is that there is individual variation in just which high amine foods different people react to.
Now you can see why I call the whole idea of diet investigation “diet detective work”!
So to make your own Low Amine Recipe book you can use the following options.
A. Gradually exclude foods you are sure you react to. If excluding what you have noted solves everything stop there. You are among the lucky ones.
B. Exclude all foods you see on lists of foods that contain tyramine, histamine, phenyethylamine (the one in chocolate), and other amines. Know that I am considering the chemistry of foods to exclude here.
Read all the articles in the category http://foodintolerancepro.com/category/tyramine-intolerance/
Then think about the important idea that the more aged the food is the more amines it contains. This means that if a meat is very fresh, even fish that is just caught – with “the smell of the sea in it” as one food sensitive person said – is very low in amines. So lists do not need to exclude very, very fresh meats.
So you become are aware that all aged food can be a problem. Then we add the idea that all rich food can cause reactions, especially foods that contain chocolate or foods like red wine. If that amount of exclusions reduces your symptoms enough you can be just that careful. However others know they are still having reactions that don’t make sense.
That brings you to Option C as the ideas above often do not explain all your own reactions.
A very important idea is to realize that if reducing tyramine and other amines has helped reduce your symptoms you now know you are food sensitive. That allows you to have a great advantage in determining if you are going to react. What is the secret to this? The idea that most food sensitive people are super-smellers. This smell-ability is more common if you are tyramine sensitive. As food becomes stale or “goes off”, or is stored longer, it probably smells unpleasant to you as tyramine and other amines increase. You have probably been surprised at how often you think food should be thrown out when others say it is no problem to them! Believe in yourself! You will also learn to be careful of aged, strong smelling food. Just to make it more interesting this can include foods you just love! Read Tolerating Troublesome Foods to understand this. You will probably tolerate small (and I do mean small!) amounts of this later when you progressing through your diet detective investigation. The change in smell relates to the tyramine and other amines developing. As you progress with your diet detective work you gradually become very good at this. Your nose is a good indicator of foods you should stay away from. Read the article: Smell – What’s smell got to do with it?
http://www.foodintolerancepro.com/category/food-intolerance/whats-smell-got-to-do-with-it/
Now you come to option C is you really want to clarify what you are sensitive to.
C. Minimise all foods that contain other suspect chemicals that food sensitive people react to. Is the diet getting stricter now? It looks that way but that is only for four weeks. Doing this means that you will find that your symptoms are better controlled. Your diet can be gradually expanded using all the information I have spent years including in my books where you begin with a careful diet for four weeks to see the full diet effect. Then for the rest of your life you are doing diet challenges to expand your diet. You can try any food you like using all the hints and tricks in my books. So you are not relying on a neat recipe book. See links to my books below.
You are now excluding suspect salicylates and additives colours, flavours and some preservatives. Your intuition had you suspecting additives anyway. You also exclude MSG, (Monosodium glutamate) and all other glutamates.
What about allergies? They are a separate group and can be found with reputable allergy tests combined with knowledge of reactions, and using the Family Sensitivity History about what different generations in your family react to. These may affect whether you exclude dairy, soy, wheat, corn, eggs, fish, shellfish, peanuts, or tree nuts.
Before you get overwhelmed realize that this area of work has been going on for over 45 years now, especially in Australia, and there are books, including some recipe books that can help. But first you need all the information that can help you understand what is real about being a food-sensitive person. This information is available in my book Tolerating Troublesome Foods. It helps you understand adverse reactions, why tolerance changes at different times and depending on factors in the foods and even changes in yourself. It rates foods in ascending order of likelihood of reaction so you can test low risk foods first. And it contains many of the important recipes that get you through that four week diet trial.
You can get the additional detail of how to do your own diet detective work from my books:-
“Are You Food Sensitive?” http://foodintolerancepro.com/buy-food-sensitivity-products/
For Tolerating Troublesome Foods see http://www.foodintolerancepro.com/tolerating-troublesome-foods/
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