After years of suffering, a good friend of mine recently realized that on top of her histamine intolerance, she's allergic to coconut— and apparently coconut is in everything. From our shampoos and our supplements to the all-natural potting soils on Amazon, coconut is endlessly versatile.
For most people this is great; it means more natural, plant-based options. But if you have a histamine intolerance, coconut may represent murky waters when it comes to dinner and dessert. Nonallergic food hypersensitivity is one way of characterizing the uncomfortable response caused by too many high histamine foods.
This can be an incredibly scary experience, as all of these triggering foods are generally tolerated by the healthy population, but trigger nonallergic histamine release in a small portion of people. According to an MDPI study, histamine intolerance only affects 3% of the population, though the percentage with a mild histamine sensitivity may be higher.
Whether you have histamine intolerance or a singular hypersensitivity, your symptoms can reduce if you home in on your triggering foods (and any products made from or with them). For my friend that means cutting out all coconut, which is generally low in histamine to begin with.
But if you seem to only react to some coconut products but not others, read on to better understand why that may be.
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🌴 Coconut and Histamine
Coconut is an incredibly versatile food. We rely upon coconuts and their derivatives for food, oil, water, milk, and even medicine. For example, if you eat the white flesh of the coconut, it can help lower your chances of getting heart disease.
But while fresh coconut histamine levels are low, the added processing needed to turn it into so many products can increase the fruit's histamine content. Coconuts take twelve months to mature, and at seven to nine months they’re considered young coconuts.
At that age these babies have as high a water content as they’ll ever have. They contain carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals, each to varying degrees depending upon varietal. As with all other fruits and vegetables, the longer they ripen or sit around, the higher their histamine content will be.
This seems to be caused by a process wherein certain bacteria transform the food's histidine molecules into histamine, which is produced in larger quantities in warmer climates. Colder temperatures slow microbial growth, decreasing the rate of histamine production.
If you have a histamine intolerance, then you’re unable to degrade this histamine, resulting in allergy-like symptoms. Other than allergies, you can also have reactions such as:
- Abdominal cramping
- Tissue swelling
- High blood pressure
- Irregular heart rate
- Anxiety
- Dizziness
- Abnormal body temperature (unable to regulate)
Below are are the most common coconut products you may come across, their histamine levels, and how they’re produced. Each product goes through an extraction phase during which water or oil is removed from of the coconut, and the aforementioned bacteria are most likely introduced.
All agricultural products that are exposed to heat contain varying amounts of these histamine-producing bacteria, including coconut. Any product which involves fermentation or extended periods of processing is likely to be higher in histamine.
🥛 Coconut Milk (Low Histamine)
To make coconut milk from fresh coconut, first the fruits are drained and then chopped in half. The white flesh (called the "kernel") inside of the coconut is grated and then soaked in warm water for a short period of time.
The resulting liquid is squeezed through a cheesecloth to bring out the oily white water, which is now known as coconut milk. The grated pieces are squeezed several more rounds to get thin coconut milk, more often used in soups, but the stuff we buy in cans is somewhere in between the two.
Both are great in smoothies, however! Coconut milk contains very small amounts of histamine because of the way it’s made, but you’re safe to use canned coconut milk as long as it has no thickeners or preservatives (like guar gum).
If you're looking to drink coconut milk as an alternative to dairy, just make sure your brand contains little to no sugar, and no stabilizers or thickeners. You can also make your own.
🍃 Coconut Oil (Low Histamine)
Coconut oil is extracted either directly from the white flesh of the coconut, or from first-press coconut milk. A process known as "fresh-dry extraction" is when the oil is brought out from the white flesh, which is dehydrated and then squeezed for oil, which is later filtered to remove impurities.
"Fresh-wet extraction" is when the oil is extracted from coconut milk that’s in what's known as the "concentration stage." Unrefined coconut oils will generally have higher antioxidant properties, but all coconut oil is low histamine and safe to cook with (true allergies notwithstanding).
💧 Coconut Water (Low Histamine)
Coconut water comes from the very inside of the coconut. As the fruit matures, it develops a white flesh that becomes sturdy– but the maturation process doesn’t fill the whole coconut with that white flesh.
When it's just starting out, a coconut is 95% water, but as it ripens the water becomes new white flesh inside of the fruit. Traditionally this water is extracted from the coconut by drilling into the center, through the white flesh, and then filtering the liquid using a cheesecloth.
Following filtration, coconut water is cooled immediately to prevent reactions which may lessen the quality of the product (such as bacterial growth). A word of warning: even though coconut water is low histamine, it can contain high amounts of sugar alongside its impressive nutrient profile, so consume it in small quantities.
🍞 Coconut Flour (Low Histamine)
Coconut flour is produced from the fruit's flesh after either oil or milk has been extracted from it. The white part is soaked in water and squeezed, dried at low temperatures, and then transformed into flour with a lot of help from a large machine.
The resulting powder is low in histamine, like almond flour, but very high in fiber and highly absorptive.
🥯 Coconut Aminos (Medium-Low Histamine)
Coconut aminos is a salty seasoning sauce, made by boiling the filtered nectar (sap) of unopened coconut blossoms. The nectar is boiled with sea salt until it looks like dark syrup, and then bottled and sent off. Coconut aminos go through a natural fermentation process which enhances its natural complexity, and have actually been found to have negligible levels of residual histamine.
But because of the bacteria involved in fermentation, it's generally considered medium to low histamine— and it may have some other amines, too. The temperature in regions where coconuts can be grown is warm enough for bacteria to produce a lot of histamine during fermentation.
Though if you have a low-ish histamine bucket, coconut amino is a less inflammatory alternative to soy sauce.
🍨 Coconut Yogurt (High Histamine)
Coconut yogurt is made from fermented coconut milk. During fermentation, some histamine-producing bacteria are used to transform this milk into a creamy and tart yogurt. To start, coconut milk and coconut flakes are boiled until the mixture reaches 180°F (82°C).
The yogurt is then put in a warm container for six to eight hours, during which time it develops quite the histamine level. But for those who eventually overcome their histamine issues, coconut milk does show greater antioxidant properties when compared to cow’s milk, according to this study.
🥥 Easing Your Histamine Reactions
Are your histamine or allergy symptoms still bothering you? Once you've been on an elimination diet for more than a month & have ruled out gut dysbiosis as a potential cause, you may want to try probiotics.
They've been proven to lessen the impact of seasonal allergies and improve functioning of the digestive system. Make sure to get probiotics that are low in histamine, and which will reduce the histamine levels in your digestive tract.
An appropriate probiotic can be recommended by your doctor or a gastroenterologist, and it can also help by improving your gut's absorption of key nutrients from your foods. Most histamine intolerance supplements will also contain some level of diamine oxidase, which helps your body break down histamine.
Jann says
What about Coconut Butter? I've used coconut products in place of dairy for years. Ive also had strange symptoms for many years that I now think maybe because of histamine intolerance. Heart palpitations, internal trembling, tinnitus and insomnia. Its so frustrating because I feel like Im chasing my tail with food intolerances. Ive been on the AIP diet and tried to reintroduce foods. But then the histamine issue came up. I just feel like I can't eat anything without having a reaction. 🙁
lowhistamineeats says
Coconut butter or coconut paste should both be low histamine as long as there isn't anything else added (for example as a preservative). I'm sorry you're dealing with so many symptoms-- I've been there and it's really frustrating, and can start to make you scared of food. But depending on your other symptoms, you may want to just switch from a AIP diet to a low histamine diet rather than trying to do both, and see if you're still having symptoms then. It can feel relentless, but there are parameters for amounts of various foods that your body can handle; you just need to find them.
Waleed Bin Ashiq Mughal says
Thanks a lot for sharing the information on this blog keep sharing in future
lowhistamineeats says
Absolutely! Thanks for your comment.
Cyndi says
I really don't like the taste of coconut. Is there a way to cut the flavor or a substitute? I notice that many of your recipes have coconut cream in them. I hate the stuff. What can I use instead?
lowhistamineeats says
For many things you could just use dairy cream, but if you're like many of us, you can't tolerate much dairy. Unfortunately coconut cream is the only passable low histamine substitute I've found for most dairy products-- that is, if you like coconut.