When your stomach hurts, the best things to eat are bland, low-fiber foods that require minimal digestive effort: plain white rice, toast, bananas, broth-based soups, boiled potatoes, and crackers. These foods are gentle enough to keep you nourished without making the pain worse. What you avoid matters just as much as what you choose, and the specifics depend on what kind of stomach pain you’re dealing with.
Start With Simple, Easy-to-Digest Foods
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. It’s a fine starting point for the first day or two of stomach trouble, but there’s no research showing it works better than a broader bland diet. Sticking to only those four foods for more than a couple of days leaves you short on protein and key nutrients you need to recover.
A better approach is to think in terms of “bland and soft.” Good options include:
- Grains: white rice, plain pasta, saltine crackers, plain oatmeal, dry unsweetened cereal
- Fruits: bananas, applesauce, canned peaches or pears in juice
- Cooked vegetables: well-cooked carrots, potatoes without skin, plain tomato sauce, canned green beans
- Proteins: scrambled eggs, plain baked chicken or turkey (no skin), steamed fish, tofu
- Liquids: clear broth, herbal tea, diluted fruit juice
The key is preparation. Steam, boil, poach, or bake foods until they’re very tender. Skip anything fried, heavily seasoned, or raw. Peel fruits and vegetables when possible, and stick to small portions spread across the day rather than large meals.
What to Eat Based on Your Symptoms
Not all stomach pain is the same, and the ideal food choices shift depending on what’s going on.
If you’re dealing with nausea or vomiting, start with just clear liquids: broth, water, diluted juice, or an electrolyte drink. Once you can keep those down for a few hours, move to dry toast, plain crackers, or a small serving of white rice. Eating something starchy in small amounts can actually help settle nausea better than an empty stomach.
If the pain comes with diarrhea (from a stomach bug, food poisoning, or traveler’s diarrhea), your priority is replacing lost fluids and electrolytes. Sip broth or an oral rehydration solution throughout the day. The ideal rehydration drink contains roughly equal parts glucose and sodium, which is why sports drinks alone aren’t as effective as purpose-made rehydration mixes. Bananas are particularly useful here because they’re rich in potassium, which you lose quickly during diarrhea.
If you have a burning or acidic pain in your upper stomach, you likely want to avoid anything that increases acid production: citrus, tomatoes, coffee, chocolate, and alcohol. Plain oatmeal, bananas, eggs, and non-citrus fruits tend to be well tolerated. Peppermint tea, which many people reach for instinctively, can actually make acid reflux worse. It relaxes the valve between your esophagus and stomach, allowing acid to travel upward.
If you feel bloated and crampy, skip gas-producing foods like beans, broccoli, cabbage, and carbonated drinks. Plain rice, cooked carrots, and eggs are safer choices.
Why Fatty and High-Fiber Foods Make It Worse
Greasy, rich foods are the worst choice when your stomach already hurts. High-fat meals trigger the release of a hormone called cholecystokinin from the upper small intestine, which actively slows down your stomach’s emptying process. Your stomach contracts less while your intestine ramps up its own activity. The result: food sits in your stomach longer, increasing pressure, bloating, and pain.
High-fiber foods like raw vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds require more mechanical work from your digestive tract. When your gut is already irritated, that extra effort translates to more cramping. This is why low-fiber, refined grains like white rice and white bread are better choices during a stomachache than their whole-grain counterparts, even though whole grains are the healthier option when you’re feeling fine.
Drinks That Help (and One That Doesn’t)
Staying hydrated is the single most important thing you can do when your stomach hurts, especially if you’re vomiting or have diarrhea. Take small, frequent sips rather than gulping large amounts, which can trigger more nausea. Room-temperature or slightly warm liquids are generally easier on the stomach than ice-cold drinks.
Ginger is one of the few natural remedies with solid clinical evidence behind it. A systematic review of clinical trials found that roughly 1,500 mg of ginger per day, split into smaller doses, is effective for relieving nausea. The active compounds in ginger work on the same receptors in your gut that anti-nausea medications target, helping to normalize the muscle contractions that move food through your digestive system. A simple way to get this benefit is fresh ginger tea: slice about an inch of fresh ginger root and steep it in hot water for 10 minutes.
Peppermint tea works well for crampy, spasm-type pain. The menthol in peppermint blocks calcium channels in smooth muscle cells, which relaxes the walls of your intestines and relieves cramping. But if your pain feels like heartburn or acid reflux, skip the peppermint entirely. It relaxes the same muscle that keeps stomach acid from rising into your esophagus, which can make reflux significantly worse. Enteric-coated peppermint oil capsules, which dissolve in the intestine rather than the stomach, can sidestep this problem.
Foods to Avoid Until You Feel Better
Some foods are almost universally bad choices when your stomach is bothering you:
- Fried and greasy foods: burgers, fries, pizza, fried chicken
- Dairy: milk, cheese, ice cream (especially if diarrhea is involved, since temporary lactose intolerance is common during GI illness)
- Spicy foods: hot sauces, curries, chili peppers
- Caffeine and alcohol: both stimulate acid production and can irritate the stomach lining
- Raw vegetables and salads: harder to break down than cooked versions
- Sugary foods and drinks: can worsen diarrhea by drawing water into the intestines
- Carbonated beverages: introduce gas and can increase bloating
How to Transition Back to Normal Eating
Once your pain has eased and you’ve tolerated bland foods for 24 to 48 hours, start reintroducing more nutritious options gradually. Cooked squash (butternut or pumpkin), sweet potatoes without skin, avocado, and steamed fish are good bridge foods. They offer more vitamins and protein than plain rice and toast, but they’re still gentle on your digestive system.
Add one new food per meal so you can identify anything that triggers a return of symptoms. Most people can return to their normal diet within three to five days after a stomach bug or food poisoning episode. If you find that certain foods consistently cause pain even after you’ve recovered, that pattern is worth paying attention to.
Signs Your Stomach Pain Needs Medical Attention
Dietary changes can manage garden-variety stomach pain from a virus, mild food poisoning, or stress. But certain symptoms signal something more serious. Seek emergency care if your stomach pain comes with vomiting blood, black or bloody stool, blood in your urine, a swollen and tender abdomen, high fever, chest or shoulder pain, shortness of breath, or persistent vomiting that won’t stop. Pain from an accident or injury also warrants immediate attention rather than a change in diet.