Aubergine

Aubergine is notable for histamine, oxalates and salicylate. Clear on tyramine, sucrose, FODMAPs, lactose, oligosaccharides, sorbitol, fructose, nickel and gluten.

Yes — aubergine is high in histamine. Aubergine is high in histamine, and it browns within minutes of being cut because it oxidises faster than almost any vegetable - which is the visible sign of the same chemistry. Salting and draining, done for bitterness, also leaves it sitting cut for half an hour. Cook it as soon as it is cut.

Yes — aubergine is high in oxalates. Aubergine is high in oxalate, and the salting-and-draining step done for bitterness pulls some of the soluble fraction out with the water it draws. Frying does not - oil takes nothing water-soluble with it, and an aubergine absorbs a great deal of oil.

Aubergine contains moderate levels of salicylate. Aubergine: where the question has been measured, the salicylate concentrates in the skin: apple came out at 2.93 mg/kg peeled against 9.03 unpeeled. Peeling an aubergine is the same lever, applied to a figure that belongs to the apple. Peeling it changes the dish more than peeling a squash does, but it is the only real lever short of reducing the portion. How it is cooked moves the phenolic content, and this vegetable is one of the four that were measured. Deep frying and sautéing RAISED total phenols; both kinds of boiling lowered them. Frying in extra virgin olive oil also transfers the oil's own phenols into the food - oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol, tyrosol, pinoresinol - so the dish is not simply the vegetable. All the methods preserved or raised antioxidant capacity. These are PHENOLS in general, though: the study measured eighteen of them and salicylic acid is not the subject. Two measurement studies put the whole fruit-and-vegetable group at 0 to 1 mg/kg of salicylate, free and bound together, with only half of the foods tested carrying a detectable amount at all. A third measured apple at three to nine times that. The level here follows the older classification, and the disagreement between the measurements is the honest state of this axis. Amounts vary by brand and recipe, so always check the label of the exact product.