It makes a lot of sense to consider foods for menstrual cramps. Your diet is a habit, and it’s influencing you with every morsel that goes into your mouth. New research teaches us that what you eat affects your genes.

Foods are not some innocuous substances that simply go into your mouth; they are potent ones that contain vitamins, minerals and medicinal constituents that can nourish you or harm you.

Bad foods will turn on genes for disease and health disorders while good foods will keep you operating at your peak capacity.

If you’ll spend a little time journaling what happens to your body during your menstrual period with different foods, you’ll answer the question, do certain foods make menstrual cramps worse, and quickly discover there are:

• Foods to help period cramps
  
• Foods to relieve bad moods during this time
  
• Bad foods for PMS cramps that worsen PMS
• Foods to avoid when having menstrual cramps
  
• Comfort foods may not necessarily be adding to your comfort during this time

Journaling is one of the most important things you can do because from it, you’ll find answers about YOUR body. Your friend Mary will find that certain foods she eats drive her off the ledge to PMS hell while some of those same foods keep you calm as a cucumber. It’s good to know what works for other women, but the bottom line is always going to be to find out what works for yourself, and what foods to relieve YOUR PMS.

Best Foods to Eat When You Have Menstrual Cramps

Cramps are often relieved by enough calcium and magnesium in the body.

Here’s a list of foods that help menstrual cramps because they’re high in calcium and/or magnesium. The level of calcium you’re looking for is a total of 1000 mg per day, and even a bit more if you suspect you haven’t been consuming enough for a while. The level of magnesium should be around 400 to 600 mg daily. Most people are deficient or marginal in both these minerals

Does Spicy Food Cause Menstrual Cramps?

Women often want to know if they can eat spicy food during their period. Spicy food increases blood circulation in the entire body, and according to the Chinese Traditional Medicine experts, if there’s a blockage in the blood circulation anywhere in the body, then dis-ease will occur. Thus, un-blocking any of these blockages will result in a reversal of the dis-ease, the menstrual cramps.

Sometimes women ask if spicy food will also cause increased blood flow, especially if they are worried about excess flow already. The spicy foods you eat increase systemic circulation; that is, the blood flow in your arteries and capillaries but not so much the menstrual flow. Menstrual flow is composed of the shedding of the layers of the endometrium and there’s only so much shedding that can occur each month.

If you’re experiencing excess flow during this time of month, you could eat more foods high in vitamin K. It’s entirely possible you’re low in this vitamin that helps with blood clotting. While you’re investigating into whether or not you have vitamin deficiencies, do seriously consider obtaining a period vitamin. This is one that has been specially formulated for you during your period.

Raw Food and Menstrual Cramps

If you’re eating a raw food diet, you may have noticed that your periods have gotten a lot lighter and/or they have stopped already.

The easily absorbable nutrients you get from fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds are certainly helpful to the body, but a raw food diet may be inadequate in the mineral boron. A boron deficiency causes the menstrual periods to stop completely, and this is not normal.

So don’t fall for the line of thinking that a raw food diet means you are cleaner and will only have light periods or no periods at all and this is the way it was meant to be. Eat with a good appetite, take a period vitamin and always do everything you can to stay healthy.