Shortly after I had learned about the Do-Not-Eat foods that cause headaches, I was having lunch with a co-worker at a local cafe. I thought I would play it safe and order a Cobb salad. I asked them to hold the bacon, and put the dressing on the side. The salad arrived; it looked great; it tasted great. I made a note to myself that some of the contents of the salad were on the list of foods-to-avoid (foods that trigger headaches): the avocado, the blue cheese, the vinegar in the dressing, and the turkey meat which was probably process rather than fresh-cut. I thought to myself, "Oh well, everything's in such little chunks, it probably can't hurt anything."
But the result was typical: after lunch, I felt a pinching pain in my head, by 3:00 PM I had a full-blown headache, and by 5:00 PM I was really hurting. I would drive home from work in pain, skip dinner, and take an Imitrex. By this time, the pain in my head would be that sharp, searing, hot pain of having a 10" metal stake driven through your skull while you're being hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat, and being knocked over the top of your head with a 2x4, all at once. This would usually last about 3 days, but there were times when it went on for 10-12 days solid.
So I learned how to eat a salad. From then on: (1) Dressing always on the side. Most of the time, I end up not adding any of it to my salad. (2) No chicken or turkey unless I'm sure it's fresh cut and not processed. (3) Skip the avocados, unfortunately. (4) No aged cheeses - no blue cheese, no Gorgonzola. (5) Steer around onions too, since they're also on the Do-Not-Eat list. Use salt or pepper to season, add olive oil if they have it available. It ends up being more plain than what I was used to, but it sure feels good to get up from a lunch table and go about my afternoon without being brought down my a major headache!
