“When you cut that eggplant up and you roast it in the oven and you make the tomato sauce and you put it on top, your soul is in that food….” ~ Mario Batali
As any foodie knows, Mario is right—your soul is in the food. But as HIP (Histamine Intolerant People) know, when it comes to eggplant parmigiana, there’s a whopping dose of dietary histamine in there as well.
Let’s start with the eggplant. Here we’re getting an average 26 micrograms of histamine per gram. Then there’s the tomato sauce at 6 milligrams per gram. Parmesan? 185 micrograms per gram. Wash it down with a fine chianti? That’ll give us about 38 mg per liter.
No matter how you cut it, eggplant parmigiana is a histamine bomb! Plus, both tomatoes and red wine act as histamine liberators, too, causing your body to release even more.
If you’re HIP, make sure you take your Histamine Digest along when you visit your favorite Italian restaurant. Because even if you don’t order the eggplant parmigiana, chances are your dish—and your drink—will be full of histamine and histamine liberators.