When your stomach hurts, bland, soft foods like plain rice, bananas, broth, and toast are your safest options. But the best choices depend on what kind of stomach pain you’re dealing with, whether it’s nausea, cramping, acid-related burning, or recovery from a stomach bug. The old advice to stick rigidly to the “BRAT diet” (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) has been updated: those foods are fine starting points, but your body needs more variety than that to actually recover.
Start With These Gentle Foods
When your stomach is at its worst, reach for foods that are soft, low in fat, and easy to break down. Good options include plain white rice, plain toast or crackers, bananas, applesauce, oatmeal, and broth-based soups. These sit lightly in your stomach and are unlikely to trigger more nausea or cramping.
As soon as you feel even slightly better, start adding more nutritious soft foods. Scrambled eggs, skinless chicken or turkey, and cooked vegetables like carrots, sweet potatoes, and green beans all provide the protein, vitamins, and minerals your body needs to bounce back. The Cleveland Clinic notes that sticking to just bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast for more than a day or two leaves you short on calcium, vitamin B12, protein, and fiber. For children, the American Academy of Pediatrics no longer recommends the strict BRAT diet at all, since the restricted nutrition can actually slow recovery.
Bone Broth and Clear Liquids
If solid food feels like too much, sipping on warm broth is one of the best things you can do. Bone broth in particular contains amino acids like glutamine and glycine that help support the intestinal lining and reduce gut inflammation. It also provides minerals including calcium, magnesium, potassium, and zinc. Even a simple store-bought chicken broth gives you fluids, electrolytes, and a small amount of nutrition without asking much of your digestive system.
Staying hydrated matters more than eating when you’re actively vomiting or dealing with diarrhea. Take small, frequent sips of water, diluted juice, or an oral rehydration drink. Once you can keep liquids down comfortably, you can start introducing soft solids.
Ginger for Nausea and Cramping
Ginger is one of the most effective natural options for stomach pain that comes with nausea. Compounds in ginger called gingerols and shogaols work directly in the gastrointestinal tract, increasing the muscle tone of the stomach and helping it move food along more efficiently. They do this by blocking certain nerve signals that trigger the vomiting reflex.
Ginger tea is the simplest way to use it. You can steep fresh sliced ginger in hot water for five to ten minutes, or use a ginger tea bag. Ginger chews, ginger ale made with real ginger, and even small pieces of crystallized ginger can also help. Johns Hopkins Medicine recommends ginger as one of the best digestive aids, noting that it’s alkaline and anti-inflammatory.
Peppermint for Intestinal Spasms
If your stomach pain feels more like cramping or spasms, peppermint can help. The active compound in peppermint, L-menthol, relaxes the smooth muscle in your digestive tract by blocking calcium channels that trigger contractions. A meta-analysis of clinical data found that peppermint oil significantly reduced symptoms in people with irritable bowel syndrome compared to placebo.
Peppermint tea is a reasonable option for mild cramping. Enteric-coated peppermint oil capsules are more effective because they deliver the oil directly to the intestines rather than releasing it in the stomach. One important caveat: peppermint can worsen heartburn. If your stomach pain involves acid reflux or a burning sensation in your chest, skip the peppermint entirely.
If Your Pain Feels Like Burning or Acid
Stomach pain that feels like burning, especially in the upper abdomen or behind the breastbone, is often related to excess acid or reflux. The foods that help here are different from what helps with nausea or cramping. You want alkaline and low-acid options that won’t stimulate more acid production.
Good choices include bananas, melons, watermelon, oatmeal, cooked root vegetables like sweet potatoes and carrots, and green vegetables like asparagus and broccoli. Nonfat milk and low-fat yogurt can act as a temporary buffer between your stomach lining and acid. Celery, cucumber, and lettuce are also gentle, high-water-content foods that sit well.
Avoid citrus fruits, tomatoes, chocolate, coffee, alcohol, fried foods, and anything spicy. These all increase acid production or relax the valve between your stomach and esophagus, making the burning worse.
Foods That Help After a Stomach Bug
If your stomach pain is from a viral illness, the recovery timeline is more flexible than most people think. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases states that research does not support following a restricted diet for viral gastroenteritis. Once your appetite returns, you can generally go back to eating your normal diet, even if you still have some diarrhea.
That said, most people find it practical to ease back in. A reasonable approach: start with broth, crackers, and plain rice when you first feel hungry, then move to eggs, chicken, cooked vegetables, and yogurt within a day. There’s no need to wait a set number of hours between stages. Let your appetite guide you.
Yogurt and Probiotics for Recovery
Plain yogurt with live cultures can be surprisingly soothing, even during stomach pain. It’s soft, cool, and provides beneficial bacteria that help restore balance in your gut. If your stomach pain involves diarrhea, probiotics can shorten how long it lasts. A large meta-analysis of 84 studies found that a probiotic yeast called Saccharomyces boulardii reduced the duration of diarrhea by about 1.25 days compared to placebo and cut the risk of diarrhea lasting two or more days by nearly 80%.
You can find Saccharomyces boulardii in supplement form at most pharmacies. Yogurt and kefir provide other helpful strains, though in lower concentrations. Stick to plain, unsweetened varieties, since added sugar can irritate an already sensitive stomach.
What to Avoid
- Fatty and fried foods: These slow digestion and can increase nausea and cramping.
- Dairy (if you’re nauseous): Full-fat milk and cheese can worsen nausea, though plain yogurt and nonfat milk are usually fine.
- Caffeine and alcohol: Both irritate the stomach lining and increase acid production.
- Spicy foods: These stimulate acid and can intensify burning pain.
- Raw vegetables and high-fiber foods: Hard to digest when your stomach is already struggling. Cook your vegetables until they’re soft.
- Carbonated drinks: Can cause bloating and increase pressure in your stomach.
Signs Your Stomach Pain Needs Attention
Most stomach pain resolves on its own within a day or two with rest, fluids, and gentle eating. But certain patterns signal something more serious. Pain that comes on suddenly and is severe, pain that wakes you from sleep, or pain that steadily worsens over hours rather than coming and going all warrant prompt medical evaluation. If your pain persists beyond 8 to 12 hours without improvement, or if you develop new vomiting or fever on top of the pain, it’s time to be seen.