Chicken Tikka Masala for Migraine?
A recent article in PainPathways was highlighting the importance of diet in fighting pain. Eating foods that are “anti-inflammatory”, such as cold water fish, fruits, and vegetables. Avoiding highly processed foods. Losing just a little weight.
One of the suggestions that was made was a greater focus on good spices. Sure enough, some spices do fight pain.
We’ve talked about some of these here before – cayenne, oregano, and ginger, for example.
Readers in many parts of Asia are probably already using turmeric regularly. But we all will be glad to hear that turmeric is an anti-inflammatory, which has been used for osteoarthritis among other things.
For those of you who aren’t used to using turmeric, here are a few recipes to get you started, from the great community at allrecipes.
- Curry Stand Chicken Tikka Masala Sauce – also contains ginger and cayenne. Takes a while to cook, but not a lot of prep time.
- Marrakesh Vegetable Curry – packed with healthy vegetables. Spinach is in there, along with cayenne and almonds.
- Indian-Style Rice with Cashews, Raisins and Turmeric – just a fragrant, delicious Indian-style rice.
- Harira – a Moroccan soup with ginger, cayenne, and lots of other good stuff.
Remember, if you have a great migraine-fighting recipe, you can share it with the community here.
9 March 2015 @ 11:40 am
This is kinda confusing though. I’m very sensitive on turmeric and spicemix called curry. Also cayenne, chili and nutmeg gives me the most horrible migraines ever. I can’t be around when turmeric is used on food, because the migraine I get from gets me to hospital. Also cinnamon gives me migraine. That Curry stand Chiken Tikka Masala would be last food for me to eat. I would be in hospital for days for the migraine I would get from it because of the too many wrong spiced.
So I have to keep reminding my friends not to believe everything they read about foods suitable for people with migraine.
9 March 2015 @ 6:15 pm
You’re absolutely right, Liulia. One person’s “migraine-fighting food” is another person’s trigger.
Many of these foods and spices may help fight migraine for many people. One other thing to keep in mind, though, is that a sudden change in diet, no matter how good, may also trigger attacks. No matter how good it may be for you, going from a diet of hamburgers to Chicken Tikka Masala 10x a week is going to be a problem! 🙂
6 April 2015 @ 3:40 am
Yummy, thanks for this recipe. My favorite dish.