Food Triggers for Migraine Headache

The most common triggers for migraine headaches are food and food additives. This belief is supported by an ever-increasing number of studies,

Various studies put food as the culprit behind starting-off the physiological reaction that causes migraine headaches in as much as 70% of cases.  Others, however, lay the blame for food at a much lower percentage.

If you suffer from migraine pain your life may become a lot easier by being aware of what foods you usually eat that are known to trigger the deathly, pounding pain that drives you mad.

It would also be an exercise in futility, or at least an exercise in filling up what precious free (headache-free) time you have to test every single food that is related to triggering your migraines.  

To avoid a suspected food trigger or group of food triggers entirely is not the answer either.  Doing this may create an imbalance in your diet and adversely affect other areas of your health, not to mention that you are just inviting more headaches (migraine or otherwise) by skipping meals or not eating enough.  

There are certain foods that are almost guaranteed to be at the top of your list when hunting down the triggers of your migraines.  For instance, foods that are rich in the amino acid tyramines (aged cheese, red wines) should always be considered. 

In addition, if you eat a lot of hot dogs and deli foods and notice you have a lot of migraines as well, you should know that certain nitrates used in large amounts of these kinds of food are probably the trigger.  

Chocolate is another major suspect in the hunt for the true killers of head peace because of its high content of phenyl ethylamine, but several studies have questioned the validity of this opinion. Public enemy number one is probably Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) when it comes to food additives and migraines. 

There simply isn’t enough space here to provide a comprehensive list of all food and food additives suspected of playing a part in triggering migraines, but here is a list of the most common in no particular order: 

·         chocolate

·         anchovies

·         dairy products

·         caffeine in all products, not just coffee

·         peanuts and peanut butter

·         red wines, beer, champagne, vermouth

·         nuts

·         chicken livers

·         pickled herrings

·         avocados

·         some beans (which includes peanut), as well as broad, Italian, lentil, soy, peas

·         canned soups and packet soup mixes

·         ripe banana

·         MSG, common name for monosodium glutamate, a flavor enhancer which is now in almost universal use in almost all processed foods

·         soy products as well as the bean itself

·         the preservative benzoic acid and its associated compounds

·         dried meats

·         yeast

·         sauerkraut

·         sodium nitrate, which is used to preserve hot dogs, bacon and cured meats

·         cheeses which have been aged, i.e. cheddar

·         sourdough breads

As we mentioned earlier, going without food or severely reducing your diet is nothing short of another trigger and should be avoided.  Instead, plan regular meals throughout your day. You might want to try to a reduced diet, in which you limit your food intake for say about a month.  (Reduced diets are not recommended during pregnancy because by avoiding the potential food trigger, you could also be upsetting your balance of vital nutrition.) 

If you experience no change in your migraine routine, you can probably assume that your trigger is not food-related.   On the other hand, you find that your migraine situation improves over the course of this reduced diet, and by a simple process of elimination add foods back to your daily routine one at a time.   If it is a certain kind of food that is responsible, the headache should probably trigger within twelve hours of consumption.

If the problem is food related then eating a certain food should trigger a headache within 12 hours. Once identified you can limit your intake of those foods to which you are sensitive.  Never restrict all your possible food triggers.  For one thing, it’s probably not going to help you narrow it down and for another avoiding all your favorite foods is just going to make you miserable and more stressful which may trigger the headache anyway.

Test yourself with food triggers to determine if food actually is a trigger for you.

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