Migraine? Consume more cheese!
It has been suspected for some time that particular foods can trigger migraine attacks… foods such as cheese, red wine, and chocolate. When I consulted headache specialists at the Klinikum Großhadern in Munich (in the late 1970s), I was told that I could try to avoid migraine headaches by not eating precisely these foods: cheese and chocolate.
I was not pleased with the advice that I should forgo cheese in particular. During the years in Munich, when I worked for a TV station, I was an ardent consumer of very Bavarian, strong-smelling, hearty cheeses. Actually, they were the staple of my diet, with some 300 to 400 grams a day.
The idea that my cheese consumption would trigger my migraine attacks seemed, at that time, so strange to me that I never took it seriously, even though I had clear indications to support the idea, as I know in hindsight.
Rather, for as long as I lived in Munich, I blamed the weather there for my headaches, which is common practice in Munich. I thought this was obvious because I suffered from migraines when in Munich but did not during my travels to Southeast Asia, which I first undertook every few months, and then every few weeks.
Of course, in Southeast Asia, the weather is different from Southern Bavaria. But apart from that, the food that was available to me in Southeast Asia at that time was also very different. No cheese.
The migraines were a major reason why, at the beginning of the 1980s, I left Munich to settle in Southeast Asia.
Initially, things didn't work out so well financially in Southeast Asia. I might even say that I had a hard time for a few years. But I certainly didn’t have a headache problem either. The migraine attacks ceased completely.
That is, until a few years later, when I was well established and could again indulge in cheese, even though Gorgonzola, Camembert, and Roquefort could only be bought at five-star hotels and at prices matching the prestige of the shopping environment.
My migraine attacks also returned in full force. Even though it is quite obvious to me now that they were caused by those generous servings of cheese, I was blind to that fact at the time the attacks recurred. This time around, I didn’t blame them on the weather, though. The weather in Southeast Asia is too different from Munich for that. Rather, I expected the culprit to be the stress of professional success.
My streak of good luck in business (the publishing trade) didn’t last long and I soon had to move to another country and start all over again. Gone was the income, the stress of being successful, the migraines, and the cheese platters.
That’s how I saw it then. Today I know that I should put it this way: Gone was the success, the means to buy expensive selections of cheese, and, because of the modified diet, the migraine headaches.
It took another cycle of success, cheese, and migraine attacks before I finally realized their cause.
During the second Asian cycle of success, cheese, and migraine (beginning of the 1990s), I came across a newspaper item in which it was reported that scientists had now definitely linked cheese and migraine.
Actually, not just cheese, but any food with a high tyramine content.
And now?
Now I consume any quantity of cheese, and I never have migraine attacks.
Because I had just one simple idea that solved my migraine problem, as well as a plethora of other health-related issues, including obesity, all at once.
This idea is that, just as we differentiate between relationships for pleasure and relationships for procreation, we ought to differentiate between food for pleasure and food for nutrition.
One technique we use to enjoy sexual intimacy without unwanted pregnancies is to use a latex sheath to collect semen so it will not reach and fertilize a female egg cell. It’s called a condom.
We can do exactly the same with food. After enjoying its textures and flavors in the mouth, discard it into a plastic bag, not your stomach.
Just as we can prevent sperm cells from causing pregnancies, we can prevent nutrients from causing obesity.
Nobody, absolutely nobody, has to be overweight. Everybody can be at their ideal weight, which is approximately body height in centimeters, minus 100, minus 10 percent, in kilograms.
If you want the figure of a ballet dancer, you may even go as far as 15 percent below ideal weight. Definitely not more than that.
Easy to achieve.
Just follow the Serge Kreutz diet. Be very selective about what you swallow, but allow your mouth full taste satisfaction.
You can consume any amount of tyramine-laden cheese. Even if you are a migraine sufferer. As long as you are Kreutzing it.