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See the complete 2026 research: http://SyrianRue.org/Soma

This is the short list of the most common foods that conflict with Syrian Rue.  Certain foods are not good when mixed.  For example, beer and milk.  You can drink both beer and milk – but not at the same time.  So it is with many foods that do not digest well along with Syrian Rue.   Also consider smoking rue, the dietary restrictions are relaxed a little when smoking rather than eating rue. http://SyrianRue.org/Smoke.  At a minimum, read about smoke as part of the read about diet because that page also documents about dose and effect of Syrian Rue. 

Large doses were once explored.  1 teaspoon of seed is enough to have an effect as an MAOI.  2 heaping spoonfuls is a very large dose, or slightly an overdose.  At 4 heaping teapoons my ears were ringing in 20 minutes, and I vomited 5 times in the first hour.  That was too much, an overdose.  I will not repeat it.

Increase your dose slowly and stop increasing at slight nausea.  I remember reading in Alexander Shulgins books his notes on rue doses and journaled about the sickness then raised the dose the next day and journaled even more sickness then raised the dose and journaled the worst sickness and I thought it was intriguing why someone would eat more of what makes them sick?  He was researching and it inspired me to also research this phenomenal neuromedicine.  There is no tolerance with Syrian Rue therefore you will never need more to reach the same effect due to frequent use.  After years of wanting to understand what this fundamental beta carboline is about, a level teaspoon which has a subtle effect is where I settle for a dose.

I did experiments with Banisteriopsis Caapi.  Yellow caapi and red cappi have the same primary alkaloid as Syrian rue.  Caapi and rue do have very similar effects.  Caapi tastes better to me.  I find the taste of Syrian Rue disgusting.  I swallow whole seeds like I would an aspirin that I dont want to taste.

The Rules:

While eating Syrian Rue, avoid aged cheeses such as Parmesan, Chedder, Blue Cheese, Swiss, Gouda, Feta, Brie, Gruyere, and Emmental. Cheeses such as American cheese, Cottage Cheese, and fresh Ricotta are not aged and need not be avoided.  Avoid aged, smoked or preserved meat like Beef Jerky, Pepperoni, Mortadella, Salami, Shrimp paste, Pickled herrings, or salted Cod.  Do not eat raw yeast, nutritional yeast, or preservatives such as MSG which are Yeast Extracts.  Do not eat fermented tofu or soy.  Fermented soy is found in some vitamin supplements in large amounts.

The substance to avoid is tyramine.  Very small amounts of tyramine will not make you nauseous or give you a headache/migrane headache, but large amounts will.  Tyramine is poison to everyone, but the levels of tolerance to tyramine vary from person to person and from time to time.  Syrian Rue lowers your tolerance for tyramine causing you to become more sensitive to it.  Tyramine is found more in old, mishandled, or damaged food because many food sources contain the beneficial amino acid tyrosine.  Tyramine can be created by bacteria that decarboxylate the tyrosine into poisonous tyramine.

Back on the topic of the poison that Syrian Rue and Caapi will not tolerate which is Tyramine. Tyramine is also created by plants – not just bacteria.

You dont want to become a religious nut about your diet and abstain from a mostly harmless dash of cinnamon or from ALL tree nuts in an attempt to eliminate ALL tyramine from your diet when your body can metabolize a little. Brazil Nuts and Hazel nuts are far worse than Almonds or Cashews which I frequently combine with Syrian Rue to no ill effect. Avoid large quantities of: spinach, cabbage, tomatoes, italian flat romano beans(other beans are OK), pineapple, dates, snow peas, avocados, raw onion, papaya, eggplants, figs, beets, olives, broccoli, red plums, kim chee, prunes, raspberries, peanuts and peanut butter, Brazil nuts, walnuts, coconut and coconut water, ginseng, licorice, cinnamon, anise, curry powder, hot paprika, nutmeg, beer and wine.

Some of the aforementioned foods are safe in small quantities, but they are all known to have some tyramine. On a mild dose of Syrian Rue I ate half of a large papaya and experienced no nausea. Small doses of rue make for easy daily use. For example there are many varieties of spinach, some contain low levels of tyramine that will not be a problem unless you eat too much of it. Be careful with spinach. Eat kale. Most varieties of spinach have a high tyramine level.

In general beer and wine they do not mix with Syrian Rue.  Expect different variety of wine and beer to contain different levels of tyramine.  My very worst ever experience on a large dose of Rue and a diet that was strictly flawless except with a multi-vitamin pill that upon detailed inspection concluded an ingredients list with “may contain fermented soy”.  I took the vitamin pill at 12:00 and the large dose of Rue at 5:00 and was extremely ill by 8:00 – the uncontrolled violent vomiting and dry heaves subsided late into the night.  There was no warning about mixing the vitamin with an MAOI – but it was a bad combo.

One time i was nauseated by a curry chicken dinner. Unlike most other bad food reactions that dissipate within a few hours, i remember feeling the curry/rue combo pass through me for 2 full days.  In 2020, while eating rue with a friend we were offered a curry meal.  I declined and told him that curry doesnt mix.  He is like me in the fact that he breaks all the rules and must see for himself if a thing is true.  It was interesting for me to confirm the seriousness of curry because pinpointing the bad food reaction is not easy.  For example – it could have been rotten chicken covered by the taste of curry – but the problem was certainly the curry. Curious curry. What is curry?  It varies depends on who makes it.  Curry often contains bouillon broth, which unless freshly made which is rare, contains Yeast Extracts or MSG as a preservative which does not mix with Syrian Rue.  A complete meal with all good ingredients becomes sickening when bouillon broth cubes or powders are added therefore eating at restaurants becomes a gamble.

Alcohol does not conflict with Syrian Rue – yeast in beer and wine does.  A slice or two of yeast raised bread is ok to eat because most yeast dies during baking leaving behind none or very little yeast – bread has never been a problem.  

Strawberry seeds contain tyramine.  Do not eat a large bowl full of strawberries with Syrian Rue, likewise with raspberries. Knowing that the strawberry and raspberry seed that is to blame and not the flesh is interesting. Banana is 100% tyramine free – however there is tyramine in the strings under the banana peel – so peel it proper and complete.  The small dark end of a peeled banana opposite from the stem also has a tiny amount of tyramine, only eat the yellow flesh which is 100% compatible with Syrian Rue.

Food that is ideal is 100% tyramine free – Such as:

Fresh chicken, eggs, fish, beef, white bread, wheat bread, rye bread, English muffins, crackers, bagels, hot and cold cereal, cream of wheat, rice, cooked dried beans, peas, and lentils, all pasta, apple, banana, mangoes, blueberries, melons, melon blossoms, spaghetti, egg noodles, rice, corn, asparagus, carrots, pumpkin, squash, zucchini, cooked onion, bread fruit, American cheese, ricotta, cottage cheese, cream cheese, eggs, canned salmon or tuna fish, tuna salad, milk: whole, 2% or skim, salt, chives, sugar, maple syrup, honey, and salad dressing made from olive oil and lemon juice.  Baby kale can be cooked or in a salad with Hibiscus flowers. Potatoes, Sweet potatoes, Yams, Yucca, and breadfruit are all good.  Pistachios, Cashews, and Almonds have always been good for me although they have trace amounts of tyramine.

Poison is everywhere.  White potatoes have the poison solanine. Cooking them destroys most of it.  Sweet potatoes are far more nutritious and do not contain the poison, so they are good to eat raw.   Yucca is also a far more nutritional choice than white potato – and all of them are good with Syrian Rue including the white potato.  Perhaps you were unaware that white potatoes can kill you – see the following link:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/horrific-tales-of-potatoes-that-caused-mass-sickness-and-even-death-3162870/ Boiled green bananas taste like white potato and they are much more nutritious. 

Beware of Yeast Extracts.  Yeast extract is the common name for various forms of processed yeast products that are used as preservatives.  Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) is the most well-known yeast extract.  MSG side effects range from headaches and nausea to heart palpitations or chest pain in about 14% of Americans. Syrian Rue amplifies the effects of yeast extract poisons.

Due to the common knowledge that MSG is bad for your health, corporate chemists/scientists have created other yeast extracts with lesser known names.  The general method for making yeast extracts for food products is to add salt to a suspension of yeast, making the solution hypertonic, which leads to the cells shriveling up.  This triggers autolysis, wherein the yeast’s digestive enzymes break their own proteins down into simpler compounds, a process of self-destruction.  The dying yeast cells are then heated to complete their breakdown, after which the husks (yeast with thick cell walls that would give poor texture) are separated. When consumed with an MAOI such as Syrian Rue, it will raise your blood pressure and likely produce nausea/vomiting.

Yeast extracts are found in various condiments and seasonings and should be avoided, those to be avoided includes but are not limited to bouillon cubes/powder, meat tenderizers, dry packaged and canned soups, gravy, sauces, stew mixes, instant soup dry powder bases, Soy and Teriyaki Sauce. Some vitamin supplements contain brewer’s yeast or fermented soy and should be avoided.

Technically, Syrian Rue is a reversible MAOI also called a RIMA.  Alternatively, pharmaceutical MAOIs are irreversible which means they covalently bind to the MAO enzyme rendering it permanently deactivated and cannot be restored until the body replaces the enzyme through new enzyme synthesis.  Reversible MAOIs like Syrian Rue can be displaced from the MAO enzymes so that the risk from tyramine is significantly reduced. Many sources of information referring to general MAOI food interactions are specifically with regard to non-selective irreversible pharmaceutical MAOIs such as Parnate and Nardil, applying somewhat less or not at all to Syrian Rue which is much safer than pharmaceuticals.  RIMAs are displaced by tyramine on the MAO enzyme therefore tyramine can be metabolized so a hypertensive crisis is not easily encountered using Syrian Rue like it is using pharmaceutical MAOIs.  Using Syrian Rue as an MAOI, tyramine is more likely to produce nausea than a hypertensive crisis.

I used Syrian Rue many 100’s of times, probably 1000’s of times between 2014 and 2026 without experiencing sickness.  It is not very difficult to eat a Syrian Rue compliant diet and with all of this information available, bad experiences will be rare but not altogether eliminated.  Even with dietary knowledge – accidents happen.  On one occasion I ate a large amount of processed de-shelled sunflower seeds that contained tyramine.  Although Sunflower seeds contain no tyramine, they can spoil.  Although I opened the bag and it was within the freshness date – that bag was spoiled and contained enough tyramine to make me sick.

Do not eat anything other than very fresh food.  Products should not be used if they are close to the expiration date.

Alexander Shulgin proposed that harmala itself caused nausea.  Even on a perfect diet, with a high dose of syrian rue there are frequently a few waves of slight nausea.  Smoking cannabis seems to help cure mild nausea.  Drink plenty of water.  Being dehydrated makes it impossible to vomit if your body needs to and drinking water induces vomiting when you are already dehydrated making it hard to drink more.  Be extra conscious to drink water when eating Syrian Rue.  Drink extra water which will make a purge easy if necessary.

Diabetics: Eat a small piece of bread and fruit juice 60-90 minutes before taking the Rue and keep fruit juice handy.  A 2007 study suggests that Syrian Rue acts like thiazolidinediones, however, harmine does not cause significant weight gain or hepatic lipid accumulation.  Syrian Rue is used to treat diabetes.  Type 2 diabetics might be able to achieve a reversal of their condition from the harmine in Syrian Rue.

Pregnant Women: Syrian rue contains uterotonics. You should definitely not use LARGE AMOUNTS Syrian Rue in later stages of pregnancy as it may induce labor.  Extremely large doses will cause an abortion due to the release of prostaglandins. 1.5 grams is enough to activate DMT and that amount is safe during pregnancy.  I know a woman who used Ayahuasca many times during her pregnancy and she has a beautiful healthy baby girl.  Rue only becomes dangerous to pregnancy in high doses.

Fasting prior to Ayahuasca

This is a curious and unexpected finding.  I do not recommend Aya for someone who is many days into a fast. In one case somewhere near the 15th day of nothing but water, first the Syrian Rue was consumed.  The effects of the Rue were enjoyable, then an extract from either Chacruna, Chaliponga, or Mimosa Hostillis was consumed slightly more than an hour after the Rue and it became a difficult and uncomfortable experience. Eat compatible food or only skip a single day of eating is my recommendation.

Pharmaceutical irreversible MAOIs combined with certain other medicines is a certain recipe for hypertensive crisis and possible death.  Although the dangers of a reversible MAOI like Syrian Rue are far less – they still exist.   Do not combine with SSRI antidepressants and dramamine.  Decongestants and antihistamines should be avoided.  I sometimes carefully break the dietary rules to find more understanding, so I mixed Syrian Rue with coffee which most information sources say should not be mixed with Rue, the stimulating effect was seemingly increased.  Coffee was not a dangerous mix.

Wait at least 3 weeks after taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) before starting with MAOIs. This includes antidepressants such as the herb kanna (Sceletium tortuosum) and pills such as paroxetine (Seroxat), citalopram (Cipramil), fluvoxamine (Fevarin) and sertraline (Zoloft). Zoloft and many of these have side effects which cause impotence in men.  Ironically, Syrian Rue is known to be an aphrodisiac.  Rue also mixes safely with other powerful nitric oxide boosting plants like watercress which have a side effect causing erections in men. I have no experience with mixing kanna I’ve heard that Rue and kanna is a bad mix, some say you should quit kanna for weeks before rue. It’s recommended to wait 6 weeks after fluoxetine (Prozac), as Prozac has been blamed for at least 1 death in combination with Ayahuasca which is a reversible MAOI just like Syrian Rue.  Do not use Syrian Rue or Ayahuasca with Prozac.

With Specific regard to Mescaline, Syrian Rue will enhance the effect.  Alexander Shulgin commented that the threshold dose of Mescaline is 200 mg so 100mg being sub-threshold will have no effect unless taken together with Syrian Rue which stops MAO from metabolizing it.

Syrian Rue combined with hallucinogenic mushrooms is the best mix ever… The combination is frequently called Psilohauasca.  Psilocin is a kind of DMT. It is DMT with a hydroxy(a hydrogen oxygen) bound at position 4 so it is 4HO-DMT or 4-Hydroxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine.  4HO-DMT aka Psilocin metabolizes MUCH slower than DMT and Syrian Rue inhibits MAO which also destroys psilocin which is 4HO-DMT.  The combination is profound and highly recommended.

Syrian Rue and marijuana are safe together, in fact marijuana may help with the nausea a little bit.  Sunflower or Soy Lecithin is a natural supplement which greatly enhances cannabis edibles by improving the emulsification of THC.  As the MAOI enhances some things, lecithin greatly enhances cannabis – edibles double in effect.  Lecithin is an excellent source of choline, a B vitimin and metabolic precursor to acetylcholine.

Special Note about Datura, this plant is poison.  Its worthy of digression.  This plant is not a serotenergic psychedelic, in that it does not cause visions by 5HT receptors that bind serotonin and molecules based on a serotonin structure. It stops acetyl-choline. “To aid in the understanding cholinergic principles, consider Datura Stramonium from the nightshade family which is an anticholinergic agent, a substance that blocks the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.  Classified as a deliriant, it causes bizarre behavior and pronounced amnesia somewhat imitating the conditions of Alzheimer’s by blocking acetlycholine.   Contrast with cognition enhancement supplements that work by raising levels of acetylcholine.

The effects from Datura poisoning generally last from 24-48 hours and in some cases, it can last 2 weeks. [13] The common-knowledge antidote is a reversible cholinesterase inhibitor, Physostigmine, interestingly – acquired from the poisonous Manchineel tree.

LSD and Syrian Rue are safe together.  LSD is almost natural considering that Lysergic acid amide, Lysergic acid propylamide, and other lysergamides exist in Hawaiian Baby Woodrose and in some varieties of Morning Glories, both plants of shamanic history.

Although MAOI related deaths do happen from drug interactions (not from food interactions), I have concluded that the dangers of using Syrian Rue as an MAOI are mostly overstated in an abundance of copy-paste-precaution that does not apply.  Overstating dangers convolutes the truth.  High levels of tyramine can cause blood vessels to narrow.  This can lead to very high blood pressure, a severe headache, and possibly bleeding – a situation that possibly cannot happen with a reversible MAOI like Syrian Rue or only at very high doses.  On lower MAOI doses you will find that many of the forbidden foods are safe in small quantities – as you increase the amount of Syrian Rue you take, you will discover that the dietary guidelines do become more important to follow and that they are not altogether irrelevant.

Regarding iboga.  Do NOT combine it with Syrian Rue.  The combo is dangerous and very uncomfortable.  Consume Iboga in the days prior to using Syrian Rue and the effect of Syrian Rue is “better” due to the metabolite noribogaine remaining in your body causing a small amount of rue to give the effect of a large amount that would otherwise require a nauseating amount of rue to achieve.  Iboga done days prior to Ayahuasca will enhance the Aya experience.

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Dose – 1-2 grams is a low dose, 5 grams is a high dose.

To effectively inhibit MAO to the degree that you can feel the effects, I have had the best success by using low dosing orally and by smoke every 2-3 hours for periods of 12 hours, daily.  If you experiment to this degree, you will likely discover that if you use too much Rue, you will not realize it until 6 or more hours after you take the rue.