SAMA HOOLE: Histamine builds up in meat as it sits. Bacteria make it out of one of the amino acids in the muscle, quietly, from the day the animal is cut up. It has no smell and no taste, and cooking doesn't touch it.

If carnivore gives you headaches, a flushed face or a pounding heart at three in the morning, the trouble is usually the age of your meat, and nobody selling dry-aged steak is going to tell you. Histamine builds up in meat as it sits. Bacteria make it out of one of the amino acids in the muscle, quietly, from the day the animal is cut up. It has no smell and no taste, and cooking doesn't touch it. Your gut clears it with an enzyme, and some people make very little of that enzyme. Women are hit more often than men, and it tends to show itself around the menopause. For them an old piece of meat is a dose. Alcohol blocks the same enzyme, which is why a glass of red with an aged steak is the worst of all worlds. What a dose looks like: - Flushing or a hot face after eating - A headache an hour later - Itchy scalp, itchy skin - A blocked nose at the table - Heart thumping in the small hours - Loose and urgent, for no reason Where it's highest: - Dry-aged steak, 28 days of it on purpose - Anything in a slow cooker for eight hours - Leftovers on day three - Mince off the reduced shelf - Bacon, salami, cured ham - Old cheese, tinned fish Where it's lowest: - Meat cooked the day it was cut - Fresh mince, straight from the butcher's mincer - Anything frozen quickly and defrosted fast - Butter, cream, fresh cheese - Eggs The test takes a fortnight. Fresh meat only, cooked fast, leftovers into the freezer the same night instead of the fridge. If the headaches and the flushing go, you have your answer, and you can add things back one at a time until you find your line. Most people have no line at all. I eat cold beef out of the fridge at 11pm and sleep like a log. But plenty of people decide meat doesn't agree with them, when what didn't agree with them was Sunday's stew on a Thursday. They went back to salad over it. The cow was innocent. The calendar did it.

— Sama Hoole (@SamaHoole) November 13, 2026

If carnivore gives you headaches, a flushed face or a pounding heart at three in the morning, the trouble is usually the age of your meat, and nobody selling dry-aged steak is going to tell you. Histamine builds up in meat as it sits. Bacteria make it out of one of the amino acids in the muscle, quietly, from the day the animal is cut up. It has no smell and no taste, and cooking doesn't touch it. Your gut clears it with an enzyme, and some people make very little of that enzyme. Women are hit more often than men, and it tends to show itself around the menopause. For them an old piece of meat is a dose. Alcohol blocks the same enzyme, which is why a glass of red with an aged steak is the worst of all worlds. What a dose looks like: - Flushing or a hot face after eating - A headache an hour later - Itchy scalp, itchy skin - A blocked nose at the table - Heart thumping in the small hours - Loose and urgent, for no reason Where it's highest: - Dry-aged steak, 28 days of it on purpose - Anything in a slow cooker for eight hours - Leftovers on day three - Mince off the reduced shelf - Bacon, salami, cured ham - Old cheese, tinned fish Where it's lowest: - Meat cooked the day it was cut - Fresh mince, straight from the butcher's mincer - Anything frozen quickly and defrosted fast - Butter, cream, fresh cheese - Eggs The test takes a fortnight. Fresh meat only, cooked fast, leftovers into the freezer the same night instead of the fridge. If the headaches and the flushing go, you have your answer, and you can add things back one at a time until you find your line. Most people have no line at all. I eat cold beef out of the fridge at 11pm and sleep like a log. But plenty of people decide meat doesn't agree with them, when what didn't agree with them was Sunday's stew on a Thursday.

They went back to salad over it. The cow was innocent. The calendar did it.