Is black seed high in lectin?

Lectin status

Safe

Find out whether black seed is high or low in lectin, see its exact rating, and check its FODMAP, salicylate, oxalate and diet compatibility all in one place.

Related checkers

Compare black seed across criteria

HistamineSafe Histamine LiberatorsSafe FODMAPsFit FructansSafe GOSSafe FructoseSafe

Sensitivity notes

Why lectin food checker matters

Lectins are proteins found in many plant foods, especially legumes and grains. Some people follow low-lectin diets believing they reduce inflammation and digestive issues, though properly cooked foods have reduced lectin content.

Proper cooking destroys most lectins - never eat raw beans
Pressure cooking is highly effective at reducing lectins
Peeling and deseeding reduces lectin content

Triggers

HistamineSafe

Histamine LiberatorsSafe

FODMAPsSafe

FructansSafe

GOSSafe

FructoseSafe

PolyolsSafe

GlutenSafe

LactoseSafe

Dairy ProteinsSafe

NightshadesSafe

SalicylatesSafe

OxalatesSafe

NickelSafe

SulfitesSafe

NitritesSafe

GlutamatesSafe

TyramineSafe

CaffeineSafe

LectinSafe

Low FermentationSafe

Diets

GlutenFit

InflammationFit

VeganFit

VegetarianFit

Paleo AIPFit

MediterraneanFit

DASH DietFit

EoE CompatibleFit

FODMAPsFit

Low FermentationFit

Priority ingredient notes

Serving size, prep, and portion notes for black seed

Black seed is Nigella sativa, the small matte-black seed scattered over naan and Turkish bread and stirred into Bengali panch phoron. As a spice it grades clean across the board here, with no histamine, no tyramine, no free glutamate, no sulfites, no salicylate flag and no FODMAP load. The reason it needs a page at all is that most people meeting it now are not meeting a spice. They are taking black seed oil capsules or a spoon of cold-pressed oil standardised for thymoquinone, and that is a daily dose orders of magnitude larger than anything you would sprinkle on bread. Almost every reported side effect and drug interaction belongs to the supplement, not the seed.

Watch for

The culinary dose and the supplement dose are not the same exposure. A pinch of seed on flatbread is a fraction of a gram, while black seed oil regimens run one to three grams a day standardised for thymoquinone, the compound that makes up roughly half a percent to two percent of the oil. If you started a supplement, log it as a supplement. / At supplement doses the common complaints are gastric: bloating, nausea, loose stools and reflux. These read exactly like a new food intolerance in a diary, so a black seed oil start date is worth marking before you go hunting through your meals. / Thymoquinone interacts with cytochrome P450 enzymes including CYP2C9, the pathway that clears warfarin, and trials consistently show modest blood-sugar and blood-pressure lowering. Stacked with an anticoagulant, a diabetes drug or a blood-pressure medication, the effects add up. Clear a black seed oil habit with whoever manages your prescriptions. / Rash and skin hypersensitivity are the recurring non-gut reports, and contact dermatitis from black seed oil applied to skin is documented. Nigella sativa is unrelated to true cumin despite the shared name, so a cumin allergy tells you nothing about it. / As a whole spice it grades clean on histamine, gluten, lactose, nickel, sulfites, nightshades and all FODMAP subgroups, which makes it one of the easier ways to add flavour on a restricted diet.

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