When I was 18 years old, I was lucky enough to travel to Italy and live there for six months. But I also wonder if my time spent in Italy was the start of my histamine troubles.

I ate pizza and drank beer. That’s it. Every day. Pizza washed down with beer. Okay, occasionally a starter of pasta appeared before the pizzas, but it was mainly pepperoni pizza and beer.

This is me sat at a restaurant in Piazza Della Repubblica in Florence eating… pizza. Analysis of Tony’s pizza and beer Italian diet.

• Tomato - yup, high histamine.

• Pepperoni - cured meat is very high histamine. Plus often pre-cooked, therefore sitting around for ages, gathering extra histamine.

• Cheese - depends on the cheese, but many are high histamine. (Mozzarella, though, is tolerated well by many.)

• Beer - sorry to break the bad news, but alcohol is one of the highest histamine things you can consume.

And throw in gluten - not necessarily high histamine but potentially inflammatory (many experts caution to avoid with histamine issues).

I would wash it all down with a nice, healthy chocolate gelato. And by the time I left Italy, my stomach was in a mess.

These days I’m A LOT better thanks to much of what I’ve posted about here. But I think that was the start of it.