Vegetable broth

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

Vegetable broth contains moderate levels of FODMAPs. Vegetable broth is the worst of the three for FODMAPs, because onion is not an addition to it - onion, celery and carrot are the base it is built on. There is no version of commercial vegetable stock without allium worth speaking of, so this is one to make rather than buy.

Vegetable broth contains moderate levels of oligosaccharides. Same reason as the FODMAP level: onion and garlic fructans, dissolved into the liquid. Water-solubility is the whole problem with stock - the chains are extracted on purpose, along with the flavour. 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.

Vegetable broth contains only low levels of histamine. Vegetable broth is usually built on yeast extract, and yeast products have carried histamine and tyramine since the first surveys of them. The vegetables contribute nothing; the flavour base does. Blackwell measured yeast products, not this additive.

Vegetable broth contains only low levels of gluten. Vegetable stock is the one most likely to carry gluten, because it has the least flavour of its own to start with - wheat-based hydrolysed protein and barley malt extract are both used to give it depth. A home-made vegetable stock has no route at all. Amounts vary by brand and recipe, so always check the label of the exact product.