Beef broth

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

Beef broth contains moderate levels of FODMAPs. Beef broth is built on roasted bones and browned vegetables, and the browning is done with onion. Roasting is hot enough to break part of the fructan, but the simmering that follows is not, and it is the simmering that matters: below boiling nothing is destroyed, the water-soluble chains simply move into the liquid you then drink.

Beef broth contains moderate levels of histamine. Beef stock splits in two, and the split matters more than the simmering time. A concentrated meat extract - the cube, the paste, the jar - is what the elimination lists actually name: the water is gone and what the meat carried stays behind, many times concentrated. A brown stock made at home from roasted bones over six to twelve hours produces no amines of its own at that temperature; the hours extract and the reduction concentrates, so the state of the meat going in is what governs the result.

Beef broth contains moderate levels of oligosaccharides. The beef brings none of this and the vegetables bring all of it. Roasting the onion first does break some of the chains - dry heat above about 135 degrees degrades fructan - but what survives is water-soluble and a stock is water, held for hours. Extraction beats degradation here. This is a PREPARED food, and that is the difficulty on this axis: the oligosaccharides come from whatever went in - onion, garlic, a legume, an added fibre - not from a single plant that could be looked up. The level follows work on fructooligosaccharides in prepared and preserved foods for that reason. The survey behind this ranks by PLANT FAMILY rather than by food: the Compositae highest in total fructooligosaccharide, then the Allium species. A prepared food takes its place from whichever of those went into it - onion and garlic are Allium, artichoke and chicory are Compositae - and the survey names no prepared food itself.

Beef broth contains moderate levels of tyramine. Beef stock is worth splitting in two, because the two forms are not the same food. A concentrated extract - the cube, the paste, the jar - is the form to watch, and it is the concentrated yeast extract such a cube usually carries that the MAOI reviews name by brand: the water is gone and everything the meat carried is left behind at many times its original concentration. A stock simmered at home from fresh bones is a different proposition. Six to twelve hours at a simmer PRODUCE no amines - at 95 degrees the bacteria that make them are long dead - the hours extract what the meat already held and the reduction concentrates it. So what governs this is how fresh the meat and bones were, and which of the two forms you are using. Amounts vary by brand and recipe, so always check the label of the exact product.