Control of Histamine in Food

This book introduces a novel concept to reduce histamine in food that would benefit both food processors and food consumers. Histamine oxidizing bacteria and enzymes were utilized to degrade preformed histamine, as an emerging approach. This is the first time that an enzyme has been used to reduce histamine in food for human consumption. The histamine oxidizing enzyme was found to completely degrade histamine in tuna soup used to produce Rihaakuru, which is a nutritious and shelf-stable, cooked fish paste of the Maldives, consumed as a side dish. It is generally produced from poor quality fish therefore presence of biogenic amines is suspected. Rihaakuru was found to contain ten different biogenic amines, with histamine in excess of 500 ppm. This may cause histamine poisoning with symptoms such as skin rashes, vomiting and fever. Most of the histamine is likely to be produced by bacteria in raw fish. These bacteria are likely to die during the production of Rihaakuru, however, the histamine would remain. A regression model that was developed may be used to determine conditions that will reduce histamine in other foods that have similar characteristics to this soup.