I wonder if anyone has more luck with white than regular chocolate?

I haven't tried just future planning

I haven't found white chocolate better, but I think it's the high sugar content.  I should just stay off sugar, because I don't feel as well when I eat it.  I think chocolate might be on the no-no list either because the beans are fermented or because they contain caffeine.

I do think the high cacao content chocolate is easier on me, 60% or higher, probably because it's less sweet.

Chocolate is something I can have when I'm feeling well, and that's a good thing, because I love, love, love chocolate!  

I think you can future plan to be able to eat a lot more variety once you're really stable, but only little bits of some things and some foods not very often.  I can't ever eat mushrooms but can at least taste almost everything else.

Don´t get me wrong, Ana, chocolate has indeed triggered me before, like the last straw issue and Joan, it was a chocolate that had a high content of cacao.   It is the chocolate and if you eat a bunch of M & Ms you´ll find yourself with a lovely flush just due to the chocolate.   It is indeed an issue for us like Spinich and Tomatoes and certain cheeses.    

However, first, everything in moderation and two, these things only when you are doing well!!   On a bad day I could never take even a bite of chocolate and bittersweet is usually more concentrated than milk chocolate and it was bittersweet which triggered me.  

Yet, again, on a good day I can handle almost any one of these foods except spinich.  That´s the one which I just can´t seem to handle even on a good day.  It will send me racing to the bathroom.

And I don´t think that it´s really so much whether the chocolate is white or dark, the issue here are the enzymes and the histamine content.   I´ve seen the fruit of cacau and had it in my home one time.   A friend of mine had just come back from Manaus which is in the Amazon and brought me the cacau fruit as a curiosity knowing I´d never seen the fruit before (cashew is also a fruit where the nut hangs down off the bottom of the fruit).    Fruits are tricky things for us as some of them have MC degranulation properties.   Cacau is one of them.   It´s a MC degranulator which is why it upsets our systems.    This is why white chocolate is the same for it´s made from the pulp of the fruit whereas dark chocolate is made from the seed itself.   This is why white chocolate has the vague flavor of chocolate for the fruit itself is sweet and has the flavor of chocolate all through it.   Again, it´s a MC degranulator and this is why it´s trouble for us.


I just had a reaction to a spray of propolis, a natural antibiotic which is an extract from honey.   3 sprays of this burned the back of my throat, my esophagus and stomach and almost put me into anaphyalxis!  I also had a fever that evening and some syncope as well!  Just from 3 sprays of the stuff!!! This happened just the day before yesterday.  On looking now on the internet about propolis and mast cell degranulation I came up with an article which confirms that is has this properly of causing MC degranulation!!    Who would have guessed for it´s a common spray for fighting sore throats and infections here in Brazil.  It´s becoming known in Europe and the States as well.  But my doctors would NEVER have warned me about it for NOBODY ever reacts to the stuff!!!   They would have said that the burning in the back of my throat was due to the virus I´d just gone through!!!  

This is why it´s tricky dealing with things for us for there are MANY things out there which are known to have this property of MC degranulation - even "natural" products!!!!  

Too much care seems to be never enough when you have masto!!  


Hugs and my hopes for a more STABLE 2012, Ana!!

Happy New Year!


LISA

In case I was unclear, I only experiment and try things that are on the forbidden list when I've been feeling very good and only in smallish quantities.  As a rule, I eat a pretty wide variety of foods and rotate my diet a lot.

What causes a person to react might change from day to day because his or her condition still isn't completely stable.  Some days, one might react to anything eaten.  Rotating foods and not eating the same thing two days in a row can be helpful.

I wonder if it's the lecithin or other added ingredients in milk chocolate that cause my problem with it.  Lisa, does cocoa butter come from the fruit or the bean?

Ana, I have often wondered about white chocolate. One of my really good friends has IC and she follows the IC diet, the IC diet has some similarities to the LHD(low histamine diet). Anyways she can eat white chocolate on the IC diet. Pure white chocolate containS no cocoa solids, it separated during the manufacturing process. Cocoa butter is just the fat from the cocoa bean. So I don't think you have to worry about high histamine levels in cocoa butter, I think it's the things they add to it like milk and soy lethicin. Sometimes when I'm doing good I can eat regular chocolate but not lately. I did have some white chocolate over the holidays and didn't react. But we are all different. I want to try and make my own white chocolate free of soy and dairy but I'm still working on it. I think Joan has a good point about sugar. I think many of us do better with out sugar. I'm way less reactive when I do sugar free diets.
I want to talk to a dietician or nutrionist to find out if indeed WC is low histamine. I have a feeling it is.
Melissa