When you have diarrhea, the best foods to eat are bland, low-fiber, and easy to digest: white rice, bananas, plain toast, applesauce, boiled potatoes, scrambled eggs, and simple chicken breast. These foods help solidify your stools without irritating your stomach further. What you avoid matters just as much as what you eat, so knowing both sides will help you recover faster.
The BRAT Diet and Why It Works
The classic starting point is the BRAT diet: bananas, white rice, applesauce, and white toast. These four foods are low in fat, low in indigestible fiber, and gentle on an inflamed gut. They work because they contain soluble fiber, which dissolves in water and forms a gel-like material in your stomach. That gel absorbs excess water in your intestines and adds bulk to loose stools, helping them firm up.
Bananas pull double duty here. Beyond the soluble fiber, they’re rich in potassium, an electrolyte your body loses in large quantities during diarrhea. Low potassium can leave you feeling weak and shaky, so eating a ripe banana is one of the simplest ways to start replacing what you’ve lost. Other potassium-rich foods that are gentle enough to eat include boiled or baked potatoes (without the skin) and peach or apricot nectar.
Proteins You Can Safely Eat
You don’t need to survive on crackers alone. Lean proteins are well tolerated as long as they’re prepared simply, without added fat. Good options include:
- Chicken breast, baked or boiled
- White fish, steamed or poached
- Eggs, scrambled or soft-boiled
- Soft tofu
- Smooth nut butters in small amounts, if tolerated
- Plain noodles or pasta
The key is cooking without butter, oil, or cream sauces. Fat speeds up digestion and can make watery stools worse. Tender, well-cooked meat is easier for your gut to break down than anything fried, charred, or heavily seasoned.
What About Yogurt and Dairy?
Plain yogurt is an exception to the general advice of avoiding dairy during diarrhea. It contains probiotics, live bacteria that can help restore the balance in your gut. Certain probiotic strains have been shown to shorten the duration of acute diarrhea. In one clinical study, people taking the probiotic yeast Saccharomyces boulardii recovered in about 3.6 days compared to 4.8 days without it. Plain, smooth yogurt is the easiest way to get these beneficial organisms through food.
Other dairy products are a different story. Diarrhea, especially from a stomach bug, can temporarily damage the lining of your intestines where lactose (the sugar in milk) gets broken down. This means you may become temporarily lactose intolerant even if you normally handle dairy just fine. Drinking milk or eating cheese could trigger more cramping and loose stools. This usually resolves within three to four weeks as your intestinal lining heals, but during an active episode, stick to yogurt and skip the rest.
Foods and Drinks That Make Diarrhea Worse
Some foods actively pull water into your intestines, which is the opposite of what you need. Sugar alcohols are a major culprit. Sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, and maltitol are sweeteners found in sugar-free gum, sugar-free candy, protein bars, and many processed “diet” foods. They have well-documented laxative effects. As little as 5 grams of sorbitol can cause gas, bloating, and cramps, and doses above 20 grams per day reliably cause diarrhea. Check the labels on anything sugar-free and set it aside until you’ve recovered.
Sorbitol also occurs naturally in certain fruits: apples, pears, peaches, plums, prunes, apricots, and dates. While applesauce in small amounts is part of the BRAT diet (the cooking process helps), eating large quantities of raw high-sorbitol fruit can backfire.
Beyond sugar alcohols, avoid these categories until your stools are back to normal:
- High-fat foods: fried anything, butter, oil, salad dressing, cream sauces, gravy
- Fatty processed meats: bologna, salami, sausage, bacon
- Caffeine and alcohol: both stimulate your intestines and increase fluid loss
- Spicy foods: capsaicin can irritate an already inflamed digestive tract
Staying Hydrated While You Recover
Replacing fluids is just as important as choosing the right foods. Diarrhea drains water and electrolytes fast, and dehydration is the main reason it becomes dangerous. Plain water helps, but it doesn’t replace the sodium and sugar your body needs to absorb that water efficiently.
You can make a simple oral rehydration drink at home: combine 4 cups of water with half a teaspoon of table salt and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Stir until dissolved and sip throughout the day. The sugar-to-salt ratio matters because it activates a transport system in your intestines that pulls water into your body more effectively than water alone. Broth, diluted fruit juice, and electrolyte drinks also work well.
When to Start Eating Normally Again
The BRAT diet and bland foods are meant to be temporary. After one to two days of acute diarrhea, you should start reintroducing a wider variety of foods as you feel better. Staying on a very restricted diet too long can leave you short on calories, protein, and essential nutrients your body needs to heal.
Add foods back gradually. Start with things that are easy to digest but more nutritious than plain toast: fresh fruit with the skin on (like apples and grapes), cooked vegetables, beans, and whole grains. Pay attention to how your body responds. If a food triggers another round of loose stools, set it aside for a few more days and try again later.
High-fat foods should be the last category you bring back. Butter, oil, fried foods, and rich sauces are the hardest for a recovering gut to handle. Everyone’s timeline is a little different, but most people can return to their normal diet within a week of an uncomplicated episode.