Histamine Tracker
How we rate foods and dishes
Every food page on this site carries a low, moderate, or high histamine rating. Here is exactly how those ratings are made, and where a rating is a direct read versus a derived one.
Whole foods
Single foods like cheddar, avocado, or chicken are rated from established histamine-intolerance sources: the SIGHI food compatibility list and the peer-reviewed literature on biogenic amines in food. These ratings describe the food's normal, everyday form. Freshness matters a lot with histamine, so where it changes the picture (leftovers, aging, canning) the page says so.
Prepared dishes
A dish like a cheeseburger or a bowl of pad thai is not a single food, so it cannot be measured the same way. We rate it by its ingredients, using one simple rule that matches how the body actually experiences a meal:
A dish is only as low-histamine as its highest-histamine ingredient. If the beef in a burger is fine but the aged cheddar and tomato are high, the burger is high. Knowing which part is doing it is what lets you adjust the order.
To do this consistently, each dish's ingredients are matched against our rated whole-food database, and the worst significant ingredient sets the dish's level. That is why a dish rating can never disagree with the foods inside it. The written explanation is then generated by AI from that verified structure and independently fact-checked by a second, separate AI model before it is published. A dish rating also names the specific ingredients driving it, each linked to its own food page.
Restaurant menu items
Restaurant pages follow the same worst-ingredient rule, with one hard requirement on top of it: the ingredients have to come from the chain's own published ingredient statement. Every chain here publishes one, as a page on its site, a PDF, or a downloadable listing, and each menu component was read from that document rather than assumed. The page links the source it was read from and the date it was read, so you can check it.
This matters more than it sounds. Reading the real statements changed a lot of answers. At several chains the grilled chicken turns out to be marinated with yeast extract and vinegar while the fried chicken is not, which is the opposite of what the menu implies. Pizza pepperoni is declared with a live starter culture. Most of one chain's bakery case is made with sourdough. None of that is guessable from a menu description, which is exactly why it has to be read rather than inferred.
Two limits worth knowing. Recipes vary by location and change over time, so the current listing always wins over this page. And freshness, which is the single biggest histamine variable in restaurant food, cannot be read off an ingredient list at all. Each restaurant page says so directly.
Two confidence levels
Whole-food ratings come from measured, sourced data. Prepared-dish ratings are derived from their ingredients. Dish pages say so plainly, so you always know which kind of rating you are looking at.
Not medical advice
Everyone's histamine tolerance is different, and this is a general reference, not personal medical guidance. Use it as a starting point, pay attention to how your own body responds, and talk to a healthcare professional about your situation.