Foods to Avoid for Migrainers

     I have been a blogger for healthy, delicious foods and recipes for three years now. In my blogs, I often focus on foods for chronic migrainers because that is my daily fight. Below, I am re-sharing my blog from two years ago. Since, trying the elimination diet, in 2014 and 2015, I now know what my triggers are. I recommend you try the elimination diet for six months. Then start adding in your favorite foods back into your diet. If you do not have a headache triggered by the food then keep it. My body is so sensitive that I will know within an hour if the food was a trigger.

Below is my refined list of trigger foods:

• Ginger
• Nitrates
• Gluten
• Cured Meats
• Smoked Meats
• Alcohol
• MSG
• Sugar in excess. 

Published in Health-a-licious.blogspot.com 

     I have changed my entire way of eating in the last 3 months. I am still having 15 days of headache pain a month and in the last 30 days 12 of those days have been excruciating. Most of those days were spent in bed or on the couch with the lights off and in my pajamas, or at my doctor's office.

     After a year and a half of searching for an answer in food, I found that food is not that answer to removing all migraines. It will help to enhance my life, but it also hinders it. Let me explain.

These are the foods that are on the NO list for migrainers.

• Gluten
• Chocolate
• Cured Meats
• Miso Soup
• MSG
• Soy and soy sauce
• Milk
• Aged Cheese (including cottage cheese and ricotta)
• Bananas
• Wild Rice
• Wine, beer, alcohol
• Any "diet" including low calorie gum.
• Yeast extract
• Broad beans including Italian Green Beans
• Sauerkraut
• Any foods that are Tryamine rich. Tryamine is an amino acid that our body process that fights dopamine. Dopamine is an amino acid that naturally forms in our body to help us sleep. People taking MAOI's must be particularly careful because "hypertensive crisis can result from ingestion of tyramine-rich foods in conjunction with monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs)." *
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyramine

Now I am finding out that plums, raspberries, pineapples and possibly potatoes can be migraine triggers. Any fruit or food that could be aged or past it's prime by a day or two. The foods that are on the safe list do not give me a "full" feeling nor are many of them enjoyable unless you create a recipe. I have gained 20lbs since June.

I have made some creative recipes and so has my family. All of the GF mixes that we have tried from stores do not taste the same as the recipes with wheat flour. I made a GF cheesecake and the crust tasted like stale oatmeal. The new non-cured meat pepperoni pizza at our grocery...I can't describe it; it has the consistency of eating hot molten plastic.

I am still on the look out for delicious foods. It is getting harder and harder to find them unless you are making your own from scratch. I will be adding more recipes soon. My hubby got me a GF cookbook for Christmas that includes homemade pancakes; a new recipe and not a mix. Yeah. It even includes onion rings. Thanks hubby.

More to come.
Have a Happy Healthy Day.

*Wikipedia