Food triggers for headaches and migraines
Are you wondering what foods trigger your headaches and migraines?
If you’re suffering from migraines, you’re probably searching for an answer to avoid this debilitating pain. And it’s true. What we eat can absolutely contribute to our headaches/migraines. The main known culprits are often condiments, snacks and convenience foods. In other words, things with additives and preservatives.
Let’s go through this in more detail so you can actively plan to avoid your triggers!
Do you read the labels of your condiments, snacks and convenience foods? Do you know what to look out for? Marketing and packaging can be so deceiving, it’s a little scary to be perfectly honest!
Nobody needs a headache or migraine to disrupt their day, so knowing the triggers that apply to YOU can be incredibly helpful to keeping a thumping head at bay.
Once you begin to identify your triggers, you can then start to eliminate those triggers from your kitchen and diet. Maybe next time you do your shopping, allow a little extra time to review the food on your list before you hit the shops. If that bit of extra time helps you to avoid your next headache or migraine, it’s probably worth it.
Common Culprits
Food colours, additives, preservatives, stabilisers and MSG (to name just a few) are pretty common migraine and headache culprits for many of us. This is because they contain additives that can be incredibly disruptive to our bodies and may be contributing to your headaches. So try and watch out for:
1. Sauces & seasonings
Many common sauces, condiments, seasoning mixes and even salts added to season food. For example – chicken salt, mayonnaise, tomato sauce, BBQ sauce, relishes etc. Packet mixes can also have flavour enhancers, so steer clear of those.
2. Drinks
Many mass produced commercial kombuchas, kefir drinks, soft drinks and sugar free soft drinks. We’ve got a whole article on synthetic sugars (which can be incredibly problematic!). Please take a look and see if any of these might be triggering your headache symptoms.
3. Spreadable butters
Many “spreadable butters” (if we can even call them butter) have a cocktail of other nasties added like synthetic vitamin d, synthetic vitamin a, and modified canola oil. Many of the things we think are butter, truly aren’t actually butter. Check out this post if you want an in depth, eye opening view of what’s REALLY in butter/butter-like spreads. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
4. The baking aisle
Many items from the baking aisle can be problematic. Even the DIY or ‘partly done for you’ options. For example – pre-made icing in a can is guaranteed to give me a headache. 😣Always check the ingredient list for potential triggers (like added colours or preservatives)
5. Pre-made snacks
Many convenience style snacks such as chips/crisps, crackers, fava beans, nuts and 2 minute noodles contain additives that can do us more harm than good. Be aware of what these products are made from and learn to choose snacks wisely to avoid the nasty migraine setting in.
Avoiding migraine triggers
It may seem like a LOT of food groups have been finger-pointed here, which is fairly accurate. BUT… each of them have options that do not use additives, and are much less likely to be a problem. For example:
- Swap sauces/ seasonings after you read the labels
- Make your own chicken salt
- Make your own kombucha or get it from a friend
- Use ghee or pure cream based butter instead of “spreadable butters”
- Make your own icing (butter, icing sugar + mix it up)
- Snacks – fresh fruit, make your own snacks
- If you eat chips, read the label and opt for minimal ingredients e.g. clean oil, salt, real seasoning, potato
Reading labels
Start to read labels if you don’t already, and if there are numbers you don’t know, or words you can’t read, maybe it’s time to find an alternative. They are out there, I promise! Be sure to keep reading labels, because your favourite brands will often change ingredients. So frustrating! 😣
I’d suggest avoiding ‘600’ numbers completely (MSG!) and consider using online resources to learn what the others are. Preservatives are often from around 200 to 220 (ish).
Natural remedies
As you begin to remove the common culprits by reading labels, you might find that you want to introduce some natural remedies to your headache toolkit. A number of these remedies are foundational within the Root Cause Protocol, a lifestyle that we wholeheartedly support and recommend here at Supporting Balance.
- Rest
- Hydration
- Fresh air
- Natural light
- Cream of tartar under the tongue
- Adrenal cocktails
- Salt
- Change your position/pillow/couch
- Your work setup – ergonomics
- Essential oils
- Magnesium water
- Massage
- Stretches
- Bodywork
- Shakti mat
- EFT (aka tapping)
Worth mentioning – stress management for migraine prevention
Chronic stress depletes magnesium and can disrupt the balance of other minerals. Therefore, incorporating stress-reduction techniques such as mindfulness, yoga, and deep-breathing exercises can help with the frequency and severity of headaches. It also overall helps us to digest our food more effectively and improve nutrient absorption.
When you’re stressed, your body’s capacity to manage food triggers becomes limited. The RCP highlights the importance of addressing stress to maintain mineral balance and overall health, and headaches are no exception!
How early you get onto your headaches/migraines also makes a difference, so be sure to pay attention to those signals your body gives you.
Want to learn more?
If you’d like to learn more about headaches, migraines and how the minerals in your body are all connected, we’d love to share some more info with you. Listen to my free presentation on natural remedies for headaches/migraines which you can access by adding your name and email to the form.
Come and check it out! We’d love to support you to keep those head thumpers at bay because they kind of suck!