ABSTRACT

Background & aim: Consuming high amounts of histamine with food causes histamine poisoning among its consumers. Much information about the content of histamine in various food products is not available in the country. In the present study, the amount of histamine in food samples consumed in human diet which are based on existing data sources can contain histamine were measured.

Methods: In the present study, 240 samples of 16 different types of food consumed in the human diet were examined. Histamine was extracted with 75 % ethanol- 0.4 N HCl in fresh and canned fish samples and extracted in other samples with  0.1 N HCl. After passing the extracts through ion exchange chromatography, the fluorescence derivative of histamine which was generated by O-phthaldialdehyde and the amount of fluorescent light was measured at excitation wavelength of 350 nm and emission wavelength of 444 nm respectively. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results: Spinach, fresh fish, canned fish and aubergine samples showed the high level of histamine with the mean levels of 5.04, 3.83, 2.77 and 2.64 mg/100g respectively.

All samples tested contains histamine but 53.3, 20.0, 13.3 and 13.3 percent of the samples of these foods contains higher amounts histamine (5mg/100gr)  respectively.Low levels of histamine was observed in a number of samples including tomato, pickles, nuts, bananas, oranges, melons, cheese, curd, yogurt and dough but no detectable histamine was found  olive and tea.

Conclusion: In addition to confirming the fact that fish and seafood products have a high risk of histamine poisoning, but it showed that the risk of histamine poisoning in humans after consumption of fish and its products will not be less than spinach and aubergine.