Caveat to this post. Only a few groups of people really need to think about tyramine: those on MAOI antidepressants and those on certain antibiotics including linezolid and furazolidone.

Background

Tyramine results from bacteria eating protein. Specifically, tyrosine, an amino acid common to protein-rich foods, gets its carboxyl group snipped off by microbes, and the leftover is tyramine. Thus, the more bacterial protein breakdown a food has gone through, the higher its tyramine content will be. Fresh foods are safe while aged, fermented, cured, and spoiled foods all have higher levels.

When you ingest tyramine an enzyme called monoamine oxidase (MAO) destroys it in your gut before it reaches your blood stream. When MAOI antidepressants and antibiotics block that enzyme, tyramine gets into the blood stream inducing norepinephrine release. This causes blood pressure to spike high enough that it can cause a "hypertensive crisis".¹

Antibiotics that can cause tyramine issues:

• linezolid (Zyvox)² — yes. A reversible, non-selective MAO inhibitor; a significant blood-pressure response appears at tyramine doses over 100 mg, so the label warns against tyramine-rich foods.
• furazolidone (Furoxone)³ — yes, but cumulative. The MAO-inhibiting effect builds over days: roughly 5 days of dosing raises tyramine sensitivity about 2–3 fold.
• tedizolid (Sivextro)⁴ — unlikely. A reversible MAO inhibitor in vitro but weak in practice: the tyramine dose needed to push systolic blood pressure up 30 mmHg fell only from 425 mg (placebo) to 325 mg, so it generally needs no dietary caution.

Danger zones:

• 600 mg for a healthy person not on any MAOI⁵
• ~325 mg the median tyramine dose that provokes a pressor response on tedizolid (Sivextro) — several times more than any normal meal delivers, which is why it needs no dietary caution⁴
• ~100 mg Linezolid's FDA labelling ²
• 50 mg for someone on a newer (third-generation) MAOI⁵
• 6 mg for someone on a classic irreversible MAOI like phenelzine or tranylcypromine⁵

For the classic MAOIs a dose–response framing is similar⁶: ~6 mg starts mild symptoms, 10–25 mg risks a severe reaction, and the average un-medicated person tolerates 200–800 mg before their blood pressure changes.

Also note: tyramine levels in food have decreased over time. Non-decarboxylating starter cultures and refrigeration mean today's supermarket cheddar, salami, and soy sauce carry a fraction of the tyramine of the mid-century samples that produced terrifying guidance in the past⁷.

The tables

Each table lists tyramine in milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg), which is the same as µg/g, and is how the food-chemistry literature reports it. For a sense of scale, 1 oz ≈ 28 g, so a 1 oz slice of cheese at 250 mg/kg delivers about 7 mg of tyramine — already over the MAOI ceiling.

The three Safe columns estimate whether a typical serving (1 oz cheese, 1 oz cured meat, 1 tbsp sauce or paste, 12 oz beer, 5 oz wine, 4 oz sauerkraut) is okay for three different situations, each with its own per-meal tyramine ceiling:

• Safe old MAOI. 6 mg/meal limit. — classic irreversible MAOIs (phenelzine, tranylcypromine, isocarboxazid). Ceiling ~6 mg/meal.
• Safe new MAOI. 50 mg/meal limit. — third-generation / reversible MAOIs and higher-dose transdermal selegiline.
• Safe on AB. 100 mg/meal limit. — the antibiotic linezolid (and furazolidone).

Because almost nobody eats exactly one bite, I've kept a ~3× margin of safety in each column:

• Yes — three servings still fit under that column's ceiling (roughly < 2 / < 17 / < 33 mg per serving).
• Maybe — one serving is usually fine, but more than one approaches the ceiling, or the food is variable enough that a bad batch could exceed it (roughly 2–6 / 17–50 / 33–100 mg per serving).
• No — one serving alone can blow past the ceiling (roughly > 6 / > 50 / > 100 mg per serving).

Remember, a high mg/kg number is harmless if you eat very little (soy sauce, yeast extract by the teaspoon), while a moderate number eaten in quantity (cheese, sauerkraut) can still get you. The Safe columns account for serving size; the mg/kg column does not.

Cheese — the classic offender

Aged cheese is the single most important high-tyramine food, and tyramine can't be guessed from taste, smell, or variety — it tracks aging and protein breakdown. The same cheese name spans orders of magnitude depending on how it was made and how long it sat; a 2024 systematic review found cheese tyramine ranging from 3.2 to 1,398 mg/kg⁸.

The reassuring news, per Gillman¹⁵: most commercial, low-priced, supermarket cheeses now run 0–50 mg/kg, and even mature Parmigiano and Cheddar usually come in under 150 mg/kg. A 25–50 g portion of those typically delivers ~12 mg or less — so freshness and provenance matter more than the variety name.

Cured and fermented meats

Fresh and frozen meat is safe. The risk is entirely in aging, curing, fermenting, and spoilage — and, as with cheese, modern starter cultures have pulled most commercial salami down to ~5 mg per portion.

Fermented fish, dried fish, and fish sauce

This category contains the single highest values measured in any food.

Fermented soy products and sauces

Unfermented soy (tofu, soy milk) is inherently very low. Fermentation is what creates the problem — and the variability is wild enough that clinicians often just tell MAOI patients to skip all soybean products¹⁹.

Sauerkraut and fermented vegetables

Plant fermentation generally carries less tyramine than animal-protein fermentation — except when seafood is added (as in kimchi).

Yeast extracts (Marmite, Vegemite, brewer's yeast)

Beer and wine

The consensus: bottled beer and wine in moderation are fine on an MAOI; tap and craft beer are the ones to avoid. In one survey only 4 of 98 beers exceeded 10 mg/L — but those reached 26–113 mg/L⁷.

Foods once restricted, now considered fine

A lot of the old MAOI handouts banned foods that simply don't contain meaningful tyramine. These are back on the menu:

Milk and non-cheese dairy

Fresh dairy carries almost no tyramine; only deliberately fermented milks creep up. Serving assumed: 1 cup (~250 g).

Fruits

Most fresh fruit has little or no tyramine. Serving assumed: 1 medium fruit (~120 g). (Banana, avocado, and raspberries appear in the "once restricted" table above.)

Vegetables (non-fermented)

Fresh vegetables are low in tyramine; several alarming numbers in old lists are 1970s analytical artifacts that modern assays don't reproduce, so the modern value is shown and the old one noted. Serving assumed: ~100 g.

Coffee, chocolate, and miscellaneous

Practical takeaways

1. Aging is the enemy. The single best predictor of tyramine is how much bacterial protein breakdown a food has been through. Fresh = safe; aged, cured, fermented, or spoiled = risky. When in doubt, ask "how long has this been sitting around?"
2. The real avoid-list is short. For a classic MAOI: aged and blue cheeses, concentrated yeast extracts, fermented soy pastes and sauces, sauerkraut/kimchi, fermented and dried fish, fava-bean pods, tap/craft beer, and anything spoiled or improperly stored. That's basically it.
3. Freshness beats blanket bans. Fresh and frozen meat, poultry, and fish; fresh dairy (cottage, cream, ricotta, milk, yogurt); non-fermented tofu and soy milk; eggs; most produce; and bottled beer/wine in moderation are all fine. Eat leftovers within ~48 hours and never thaw protein at room temperature.
4. Concentration isn't dose. A teaspoon of Marmite (~2 mg) is fine; a wedge of blue cheese (~28 mg/oz) is not. Always think in servings, not mg/kg.
5. Old numbers overstate today's risk. Modern hygiene and starter cultures have slashed tyramine in commercial cheese, salami, soy sauce, and beer. The scary figures in legacy lists are largely historical.
6. It's about the drug, not the diagnosis. The people who need this list are anyone whose MAO enzyme is blocked: classic MAOI antidepressants are the main case, but the antibiotic linezolid counts too — and a short antibiotic course is exactly when nobody's thinking about cheese. Low-dose transdermal selegiline, moclobemide, and tedizolid generally need no restriction. If your MAO isn't inhibited by something, this whole table is trivia.

Caveats

• Wide variability is the dominant theme. Published values span orders of magnitude across products, countries, decades, and lab methods. Treat single numbers as illustrative, not definitive — the ranges matter more than the digits.
• Each Safe column assumes a different drug. Safe old MAOI uses the strict ~6 mg classic-MAOI ceiling; Safe new MAOI the ~50 mg third-generation/reversible ceiling; Safe on AB the ~100 mg linezolid ceiling. Read across to the column that matches your situation. If your MAO isn't inhibited at all, every column is effectively "Yes" — the healthy-person ceiling is ~600 mg.
• Per-serving figures are computed from each row's mg/kg value (1 oz = 28.35 g, 1 tbsp ≈ 15 g, 4 oz ≈ 113 g sauerkraut, 5 oz ≈ 148 mL wine, 12 oz ≈ 355 mL beer), so they're approximate and inherit the wide spread of the concentration ranges. Two values still come from a pharmaceutical patient guide (ZEPOSIA) — the pepperoni concentration and the bottled/draft-beer figures — which targets a different, higher threshold for a different drug.
• Fava beans are the odd one out. The fava-bean reaction is caused by levodopa/dopamine, not tyramine — a mechanistic distinction the old food lists tend to blur.
• This is a reference compilation, not medical advice. Anyone on an MAOI should follow their prescriber's and dietitian's specific guidance, and ideally keep a home blood-pressure log in the first weeks.

Sources