Reducing Meat Stock’s Histamine
As discussed in Meat Stock vs. Bone Broth, one benefit of short-cooked meat stock is that it contains dramatically less histamine than long-cooked bone broth. Yet, for some folks, they need to take extra precautions to prevent excess histamine in their meat stock. Excess histamine, gut permeability and low levels of the digestive enzyme DAO work synergistically (with many other factors, of course) to inflame the body and create a hostile environment that can result in symptoms like itchy skin, hives, diarrhea, bloating, sensitivity to the sun, extreme reactions to bug bites, anxiety and depression, to just name a few.
If you are battling with the symptoms listed above, I suggest taking additional steps to reduce your meat stock’s histamine load if you are not seeing improvement while drinking properly prepared meat stock. Most people will find that short-cooking and freezing after cooling is the only histamine mitigation they need but some sensitive folks will need to follow extra precautions. The following is a comprehensive list of ways to further reduce histamine in meat stock:
Cook your meat stock on the stove top rather than using a slow cooker or pressure cooker. This provides more temperature control to ensure your stock is simmering, rather than boiling.
Reduce cooking time even further. Typically, chicken stock calls for 2 hours of simmering and beef stock calls for 3 hours of simmering. Meat stock is “done” when the meat is tender and slides off the bone. Try checking meat tenderness earlier than recommended to see if you can pull your stock off the heat earlier to reduce cooking time.
Cook small batches of meat stock. Smaller batches can require less cooking time and storing leftovers in the fridge is a quick way to increase histamine.
Cool your stock down quickly after removing from the stove. One technique is to fill your sink with ice and place your stock pot directly into the ice to cool. If it’s winter and freezing outside, place your stock pot outside in the snow to cool. Distributing hot meat stock into smaller bowls/pots brings cooling much faster than waiting for a big pot of stock to cool.
After cooling, freeze stock in small portions in the freezer as freezing halts histamine production. Freeze small portions so you can gently heat the exact amount you need on the stove top. If you freeze in glass jars, be sure to leave at least one inch of empty head space to avoid the risk of the freezing stock expanding and breaking your jar. Silicon muffin trays are excellent for very small portions — freeze in the silicon tray and then pop out and store in a ziploc bag.
Do not blend chicken skin into your “cream” as described in Making Meat Stock. Chicken skin is naturally high in histamine. It is fine to include cartilage and gooey connective tissues for increased nutrition and healing though.
Purchase your meat directly from a butcher or farmer who can ensure your meat is as fresh as possible.
