Papa Murphy's Spanish Green Olives

Yes, Papa Murphy's Spanish green olives are high in histamine. Olives have to be cured before they are edible, and that curing process is where histamine builds, so the topping lands high no matter how it is served.

Why papa murphy's spanish green olives are rated high

A raw olive straight off the tree is too bitter to eat, so every olive you will ever see on a pizza has gone through a cure. Green olives are typically brine-cured, and during that time bacteria work on the olive, which is the real mechanism behind histamine in cured and fermented foods. The published ingredient list here is short: green olives, water, salt, and lactic acid. The water, salt, and lactic acid are just the packing liquid and do not add histamine of their own. The olives themselves carry the rating, and nothing that happens on the pizza afterward undoes it.

What changes your risk

• The olives are the whole story — there is only one histamine-carrying component on the list, the green olives. Water, salt, and lactic acid are packing ingredients, not drivers.
• Curing already happened — the histamine in a cured olive formed before it ever reached the store, so a freshly opened container is not a low-histamine version. This topping is high from the moment it is portioned.
• Baking does not remove it — Papa Murphy's pizzas are take-and-bake, and the heat of your oven does not destroy histamine that is already in the olives.
• How many go on — a pizza with a generous scatter of olives carries more than one with a few, but a light portion is still a high topping rather than a safe one.
• Time on the make line — the olives sit in their packing liquid at the counter through service. Because they are already cured and high, holding time is a smaller factor than the cure itself.

Lower-histamine alternatives

On Papa Murphy's lower-histamine list, the options are Chicken, Onion Mix, and Zesty Herb Blend. If you want a salty, savory hit in place of olives, Onion Mix and Zesty Herb Blend are the lower choices for flavor, and Chicken is the lower protein-style topping. There is no lower-histamine olive at Papa Murphy's; all olives are cured, so the swap has to be a different kind of topping entirely.

How to lower the risk

When you build your pizza, leave the Spanish green olives out of your topping choices and reach for Chicken, Onion Mix, or Zesty Herb Blend instead. Since Papa Murphy's is a build-to-order counter, you choose each topping yourself, so the simplest protection is not selecting olives in the first place. If someone else in the household wants olives, ordering your own pizza without them is easier than trying to pick them off a shared one, since the packing liquid spreads across the surface.

Common questions

Are green olives lower in histamine than black olives?

Not in a way you can rely on. Both kinds are cured before they are sold, and curing is what builds histamine, so this index rates olives as high regardless of color.

Does baking the pizza reduce the histamine in the olives?

No. Baking changes texture and flavor but does not break down histamine that formed during curing.

Can I just pick the olives off my pizza?

Picking them off removes most of the olive, but the packing liquid and juices will have soaked into the cheese and sauce around them. Choosing a pizza without olives is the cleaner option.

What is the lactic acid in the ingredient list doing?

It is part of the packing liquid that keeps the olives stable in their container. It is not what makes the topping high; the cured olives themselves are.