Store fruits properly. For most fruits, keeping them on the counter and eating them just under peak ripeness is fine, but when a fruit starts to ripen, you should eat it immediately or refrigerate it for a few more days. Add the washed berries and water to a large casserole. Let it boil (covered with a lid) until the berries are pale and have released most of their juices. Make sure the berries don’t break, as this will make your cordial cloudy. This sounds like it's been an incredibly harrowing and demoralizing experience for you, and for years on end. I'm so sorry you've had to deal with all of that. But it does sound like you've started to sort out a lot of your triggers and figure out your own way around a lot of your issues, at least for now, but it also sounds like it's getting worse. Unfortunately I'm not a doctor, so I warn you that this is not medical adice but just my own personal research and experieince that say it sounds like your mast cells are also reacting to stress.

Between 400-700 grams of sugar to every 1000 grams of berriesis usually a good bet. Less sugar for sweet fruit like apples and strawberries and more for tart ones. Although this idea of histamine liberators has since proliferated, no recent studies have been done to try to replicate these results. Yet from those studies alone, dozens of foods have been added to the SIGHI high histamine list, and many people continue to avoid them. butternut squash & apples Medium & High Histamine Fruits List And it is in fact not so scary as it sounds. Pre-heat oven to 275F (140C) and place a tray in the middle of the oven. Wash your glass bottles in hot soapy water, and then place them on the tray. Let them in there for at least 20 minutes. Fill the jars with cordial when they are still hot. You also need to wash and heat the lids. Strain it through a sieve covered in a cheesecloth or damp old kitchen towel – remember to keep a bowl underneath. Combine with sugar. Pour into sterilized glass bottles.I realize not everyone has room for an extra appliance in their kitchen. You can however simply add them to a casserole directly. Make sure the berries are clean, remove vines (and pits for plums and cherries!). This will keep for up to 3 weeks in the fridge, butthe best way to preserve it is to freeze it! To freeze: pour into smaller bottles, leaving some room as the liquid expands once frozen. Buy organic. If you can't buy local produce, at least try to buy organic when purchasing the infamous dirty dozen. In the casserole that fits the cordial steamer snuggly, fill with water, leaving 2.5in (3cm) at the top. Top with the cordial steamer and pin the tube so the juice doesn’t come out.

You dilute 1 part saft with 4 parts water, but sometimes it can be up to 9 parts water as it depends on the concentration. For the perfect berry cordial drink here I recommend 1 part saft with 4 parts water, but it comes down to your own preferences! This will keep for up to 3 weeks in the fridge, but the best way to preserve it is to freeze it! To freeze: pour into smaller bottles, leaving some room as the liquid expands once frozen. The difference between a squash and a cordial is the concentration of fruit juice. It's claimed that squash has at least 30% fruit, whereas cordial is normally around the 10 - 15% area. However, the terms are often used interchangeably. But this recipe actually has 45% fruit! You will dilute this in water of course, so it will be less, but the actual berry syrup is about 45%. How long it will steam depends on your berries, but my red currant cordial needs about 80-90 minutes. It's usually not less than an hour, although raspberries, plums and pears need less, about 45 minutes.Then strain it through a sieve covered in a cheesecloth or damp old kitchen towel - remember to keep a bowl underneath. You can also mix some tart berries with some sweet berries and use less sugar. Combining red currants or raspberries with blueberries or strawberries and you can use around 500 grams or 2 ½ cups sugar per 1000 grams of berries. Saft is the Scandinavian term for cordial or squash. We drink a lot of saft in Norway, and it's a common drink for kids that don't want to drink water. S ugar free saft, is also very popular, using artificial sweeteners. A Scandinavian saft typically has high fruit concentration (before diluting in water), but it will also depend on the type of berries. Either way - it is delicious! To avoid all the most common pitfalls, ones I've even fallen into, below are my top 5 tips for keeping fruits low histamine rather than losing them to time.

Add the berries and water to a large casserole. Let it boil (covered with a lid) until the berries are pale and have released most of their juices. Make sure the berries don't break, as this will make your cordial cloudy. Add a damp old kitchen towel or cheesecloth to a large colander and the colander over a new casserole or big bowl. Pour the berry water in. Let this drip overnight (or a few hours), do not help it as this will also make the cordial cloudy.In short, the idea is that certain foods “release” histamine from other foods. The theory is based on chemical-isolating studies done in the 1950’s and ’60’s, which found that some participants experienced histamine release when they consumed specific foods (all of which were otherwise known to contain low levels of histamine). In the cordial steamer, layer berries and sugar. Place the lid on and place something heavy on top. Do not open the lid during the steaming process. Eat seasonally. This can be understandably hard in the winter, but try your best to eat the fruits that are in season in your area. Even if all the fruits at your local grocer's isn't from your region, they're more likely to come from nearby, and it may be easier to find a local, direct source.

As with most diets, there are many allowed fruits on the low histamine diet. I generally recommend people start with just blueberries, and work up to apples, raspberries, and kiwis before reintroducing other fruits. So when they eat high-carb foods like fruits, this bacterial overgrowth foods on the sugars and produce histamine (known as SIBO). Yet even some unripe fruits are still considered high or moderate in histamine. Saft: Cordial is most commonly known as the non-alcoholic syrupy drink we call saft in Scandinavia. You can use less sugar, but the cordial will keep for a shorter amount of time. Start with little and taste as you go, stop when you think it's sweet enough but just remember it won't keep that well.

This is because the longer a fruit sits around, the more bacteria it's exposed to, and many types of bacteria produce histamine as a by-product of their own digestion. For some people, the bacteria are already inside them over-producing histamine. The label’s full of information you’d not normally read, but it says some encouraging things: Concentrated, no added sugar, cherries and berries fruit drink with sweeteners. Contains naturally occurring sugars. This is a “no added sugar” squash – I always opt for no added sugar as I prefer to save my calorie indulgences for food-based items and not “waste” them on drinks where I don’t see the benefit. In fact, I’d even categorize many of these as antihistamine fruits, meaning that they contain substances such as quercetin, which stabilizethe mast cells, those which release histamine throughout the body.