Migraine Elimination Diet: How to Identify Your Food Triggers

Written and verified by Holly Hazen

If you live with migraine, identifying your food triggers can make a significant difference in how often attacks occur. One of the most effective ways to uncover those triggers is through a migraine elimination diet.

An elimination diet works by temporarily removing common trigger foods from your diet and then reintroducing them one at a time. This allows you to observe how your body responds and identify foods that may be contributing to migraine attacks.

While foods like chocolate, aged cheese, and alcohol are commonly reported triggers, every person living with migraine is different. What triggers one person may have no effect on someone else.

This article explains how to do a migraine elimination diet step-by-step so you can begin identifying your personal food triggers and build a safer long-term diet.

You can also explore broader nutrition strategies in this article → Migraine Headaches Diet.

What Is a Migraine Elimination Diet?

A migraine elimination diet is a structured approach used to identify foods that may trigger migraine attacks.

The concept is simple. Potential trigger foods are removed from your diet for a period of time. After this elimination phase, foods are gradually reintroduced while monitoring symptoms.

This process helps reveal which foods may cause migraine attacks and which foods appear safe for your body.

Many people discover that eliminating specific trigger foods can significantly reduce the frequency or severity of migraine attacks.

How a Migraine Elimination Diet Works

A typical migraine elimination diet involves three main stages.

Elimination Phase

Common migraine trigger foods are removed from the diet for two to four weeks. This allows your body time to stabilize without exposure to possible triggers.

Observation Phase

During the elimination period you monitor your migraine symptoms to see whether attacks become less frequent or less severe.

Reintroduction Phase

After the elimination period, foods are reintroduced one at a time every three to four days. If symptoms return after introducing a specific food, that food may be a migraine trigger.

Keeping detailed records during this process is essential.

Tracking foods, symptoms, and timing makes it much easier to identify patterns.

My Migraine Elimination Diet Journey

Starting a migraine elimination diet can feel overwhelming. My own experience with this process lasted more than four years and taught me many valuable lessons.

In the early days I was prescribed a strict elimination diet by a hospital dietician. The plan allowed only a handful of foods including lamb, chicken, white rice, and soup broth.

Each week I introduced one new food while carefully documenting any reactions.

Although the concept seemed simple, the process quickly became complicated. Tracking food combinations and symptoms became difficult, and my migraine attacks continued.

Later I worked with a naturopath who followed principles from the book It Could Be Allergy and It Can Be Cured. This approach added supplements into the testing process, which made the experiment even more complex.

Looking back, the process took far longer than it should have. Reintroducing foods one by one stretched into a four-year journey.

However, the experience eventually revealed several important triggers including dairy, sugary foods, and certain fruits.

Years later another breakthrough occurred when a doctor discovered gluten markers in my blood tests. Eliminating gluten helped improve my health dramatically and played an important role in my recovery from chronic fatigue symptoms.

The lesson I learned is that identifying migraine food triggers can take time, patience, and careful observation.

The Most Common Migraine Trigger Foods

Numerous studies have highlighted the remarkable impact of identifying and avoiding food triggers on reducing migraine frequency. Many individuals who successfully eliminate their dietary triggers experience a significant decline in the number of migraine days per month. This is why a migraine elimination diet is often recommended as the initial step in pinpointing your main offenders.

Dr. Teitelbaum's research has uncovered compelling statistics on the most common migraine-inducing foods. According to his findings, a staggering 78% of migraine patients experienced a reduction in symptoms after eliminating wheat from their diets. Other notable food triggers identified in his study include:

• Oranges (65% of patients)

• Eggs (45% of patients)

• Tea and coffee (40% of patients each)

• Chocolate and milk (37% of patients each)

• Beef (35% of patients)

• Corn, cane sugar, and yeast (33% of patients each)
  
  

While the study disallowed controversial foods like the artificial sweetener aspartame, some participants reported a reduction in migraine episodes after avoiding these additives, along with other potential triggers such as alcoholic beverages (particularly red wine), caffeinated drinks (tea, coffee, and colas), MSG, and nitrites.

In summary, the following foods and ingredients should be considered for potential elimination and testing:

• Wheat, gluten, and other wheat-based products

• Oranges

• Eggs

• Tea and coffee

• Chocolate

• Milk and other dairy products

• Beef

• Corn

• Cane sugar, white sugar, and white flour products

• Yeast

• Alcoholic beverages (especially red wine)

• Caffeinated drinks (tea, coffee, and colas)

• MSG

• Aspartame

• Nitrites
  
  

You can learn more about food triggers here:

→ Foods That Trigger Migraines

Migraine-Safe Foods During the Elimination Phase

While removing trigger foods, it is important to continue eating a balanced diet using foods that are generally well tolerated.

Some commonly tolerated foods include:

Rice
Brown rice is often well tolerated during elimination diets.

Cooked green vegetables
Broccoli, spinach, Swiss chard, and collard greens.

Cooked orange vegetables
Carrots, pumpkin, and sweet potatoes.

Cooked yellow vegetables
Summer squash.

Non-citrus fruits
Cherries, cranberries, pears, prunes (AVOID citrus fruits, apples, bananas, peaches, and tomatoes).

Simple condiments
Salt, maple syrup, and vanilla extract.

Water
Filtered water or mineral water.

These foods can help maintain good nutrition while you test potential triggers.

Reintroducing Foods After the Elimination Phase

Once the elimination phase is complete, foods can be reintroduced one at a time.

A typical approach is to introduce one food every two to four days while carefully monitoring symptoms.

If a migraine occurs shortly after introducing a specific food, that food may be a trigger.

Common reaction times range from three to six hours after eating the trigger food.

Keeping careful records during this phase helps identify patterns more easily.

Tips for Identifying Your Personal Food Triggers

The migraine elimination diet process requires patience and attention to detail.

Remember, this journey is about building your personalized safe food list, one step at a time. It's crucial to wait until your symptoms have subsided before testing another food item and ensure that you consume a generous portion to accurately gauge your body's reaction. If the food doesn't trigger a migraine episode, you can safely incorporate it into your diet.

However, it's also advisable to avoid the "dirty dozen" list of foods, as well as any beverage with additives such as aspartame or NutraSweet, until you've completed testing all your suspected foods. The Dirty Dozen list includes the following fruits and vegetables most contaminated with pesticides - apples, strawberries, grapes and celery top the list. Followed by peaches, spinach (kale and collard and mustard greens), sweet bell peppers, imported nectarines, cucumbers, potatoes, cherry tomatoes and hot peppers. _[4]

Identifying migraine food triggers often requires careful observation over time.

Here are several tips that may help you identify triggers more effectively.

Pay attention to timing
Trigger foods are often consumed three to six hours before an attack.

Watch your cravings
Foods you crave frequently may sometimes be a migraine trigger.

Test different quantities
Small amounts of a food may be tolerated while larger portions trigger symptoms.

Consider food combinations
Some migraine attacks may be triggered by combinations of foods rather than a single ingredient.

Monitor hormonal changes
Sensitivity to triggers may increase around your menstrual cycle.

Re-evaluate over time
Migraine triggers can change, so periodic testing may be helpful.

Test Foods and Supplements in a Structured Way

Strategically find which foods and supplements may help reduce attacks

If you suspect that certain foods or supplements may be affecting your migraine attacks, it can be very difficult to identify patterns without a clear system.

Testing foods randomly often leads to confusion, because symptoms may appear hours or even days later. This structured testing plan guides you to introduce foods, supplements, and a few other things to benefit your overall health gradually while monitoring symptoms and reactions over the course of 8-weeks.

My Food & Supplement – 8 Week Testing Plan helps you:

• test foods and supplements more systematically

• not just any food or supplements but those known to help with migraine

• recognize patterns that develop over time

• build a clearer understanding of what supports your migraine and health
  
  

It’s a structured plan with weekly prompts that build from one week to the next, guiding your food and supplement experiments.

Over time this process can help reveal patterns and identify which foods or supplements may be contributing to your migraine attacks... or not!

→ Start the 8-week migraine food and supplement testing plan

Final Thoughts

A migraine elimination diet can be one of the most useful tools for identifying food triggers.

Although the process requires patience and careful observation, many people discover that removing specific foods significantly reduces migraine frequency.

The goal is not to create a perfect diet, but to understand how your body responds to different foods.

By identifying your personal triggers and maintaining a balanced diet, you can gradually build a nutrition strategy that supports better migraine management.

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<sub>Migraine Elimination Diet References:
1. Teitelbaum, Dr. J. (2007) From Fatigued to Fantastic. Penguin Books: NY.
2. Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (ASCIA). What is Allergy? Available [online] at: https://www.allergy.org.au
3. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Migraine Diet: A Natural Approach to Migraines. Available [online] at: www.pcrm.org/health/health-topics/a-natural-approach-to-migraines.
4. Environmental Working Group (EWG). Dirty Dozen List.  Available [online] at: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty-dozen.php</sub>

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