Hi and welcome to my blog “The Histamine Friendly Kitchen” about delicious food low in histamine or as I like to call it “Histamine Friendly”. Just to put a positive spin on things 😉
I’m Tania, and I’m cooking and blogging from Eindhoven, The Netherlands, where I live with my partner and two lovely boys, age 2-4. As well as dealing with Histamine Intolerance (HIT), I have a few other food allergies/sensitivities like cows milk, eggs and garlic. Therefor you won’t find a lot of recipes with these ingredients on my blog. I’m especially sad about the eggs, since my proteins sources got further limited after starting on the histamine friendly diet. But please remember, that just because I don’t eat eggs, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t…. Remember that it is very individual what a person with HIT can or can’t tolerate. So listen to your body, just like I’m listening to mine.
Starting a (food) blog is something I had thought about for years, but it wasn’t until I found out that I have a problem with Histamine, that I knew what I wanted to blog about. When I first figured this out I spent about 1-2 weeks walking around and feeling like I couldn’t eat anything at all anymore, all of my favorite foods where on the no no list, like cheese (I mean CHEESE……. How will I ever learn to live without that), tomatoes, avocado, and chocolate (I don’t even want to think about that…. so much worse than the cheese thing). I could only see the limitations, and it was very frustrating. So I sat down and read through a couple of cook books for people with HIT, and there was plenty of recipes to choose from. So I decided to focus on the options instead of the limitations and then I found the joy back in cooking and eating. It was all of a sudden a fun challenge instead of a big annoyance. And that’s when I really started to feel the positive effects on my body.
My symptoms included massive stomach cramps, like can’t stand up let alone get out of bed stomach cramps, which would come as stabs of pain and last for minutes. Extreme tiredness and complete lack of energy and initiative. Massive migraine like headaches. The feeling that the world was going on around me like in a movie that I wasn’t really part of. A racing hart beat, that to e felt so loud that I could barely hear anything else (especially when lying down), which made it difficult to fall asleep at night. Massive problems with waking up in the morning. A general sense of uneasiness and shakiness in my body. Really bad PMS and painful periods. General irritability. Mild panic attacks. About 10 kilos too many that just wouldn’t come off. And last but not least small itchy bumps all over my body.
My symptoms started up slowly after having my second kid, at a time I didn’t think that is was so weird to be tired, but instead of slowly recovering and getting better, I was only getting worse and worse, and after I was in a small car accident later that year, it really went downhill. Physical and emotional stress was definitely my trigger. And even though I work as a Orthomolecular Therapist, it wasn’t until I had a client with HIT that that I put two and two together. I remember looking at the list of possible symptoms and thinking sh..!!! I need to get tested.
After about 3-4 weeks on the diet I was virtually symptom free. It was a massive different and I felt like myself again. And I want to help you to feel like you again. So, I’m dedicating this blog to help you find some inspiration on how to deal with the histamine friendly diet/low histamine diet. Help you see the possibilities instead of all of the frustrating limitations.
I hope all of you out there suffering from histamine intolerance (HIT) will enjoy these recipes as much as me and family does. Feel free to leave comments about the recipes and add your own personal twist to them 🙂 And please share.
Greetings,
Tania Surrow Larsen
The Histamine Friendly Kitchen
