When you have diarrhea, the best foods to eat are bland, easy-to-digest options that help firm up your stool without irritating your gut. Think white rice, bananas, plain chicken breast, eggs, and toast. But you don’t need to limit yourself to just a handful of foods. Current guidelines actually encourage eating a broader range of gentle foods rather than sticking to an ultra-restrictive diet.
The BRAT Diet: Helpful but Limited
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, white rice, applesauce, and white toast. These four foods became the go-to recommendation because they’re low in fiber, easy on the stomach, and help solidify loose stools. They still work well as a starting point, especially in the first several hours when your symptoms are at their worst.
That said, the BRAT diet is no longer considered a complete strategy. The American Academy of Pediatrics specifically advises against following it strictly for children, noting that it’s too nutritionally restrictive and may actually slow recovery. For adults, it’s fine for a day or two at most, but it lacks calcium, vitamin B12, protein, and fiber. Your gut needs a wider range of nutrients to heal, so treat BRAT foods as a foundation and build from there as soon as you can tolerate more.
Foods That Help Firm Up Stool
Soluble fiber is your best friend during a bout of diarrhea. Unlike insoluble fiber (the rough, scratchy kind in raw vegetables and whole grains), soluble fiber absorbs water in your intestines and adds bulk to your stool. Good sources include oats, bananas, applesauce, carrots, and barley. Pectin, a type of soluble fiber found naturally in apples, also helps bind things together in your digestive tract.
Plain white rice and white bread are useful because they’ve had their fiber-rich outer layers removed, making them extremely easy to digest. Noodles and plain crackers fall into the same category. These starchy foods give you energy without making your gut work hard.
Lean Proteins for Recovery
Your body needs protein to repair itself, so don’t skip it. The key is choosing lean, simply prepared options. Baked or steamed chicken breast, white fish, eggs, soft tofu, and cottage cheese are all well tolerated. Smooth yogurt is another good choice, especially if it contains live cultures.
Cooking method matters here. Baking, steaming, and boiling are gentler on your system than frying or sautéing in oil. Smooth nut butters can also work if you tolerate them. Avoid anything heavily seasoned, breaded, or cooked in fat.
Replacing Lost Electrolytes
Diarrhea flushes potassium, sodium, and other electrolytes out of your body, which is why you feel so drained. Replacing potassium is especially important. A medium banana provides about 422 mg of potassium. A baked potato (flesh only) packs even more at around 610 mg. Both are easy to digest and worth including in your recovery meals.
Broth and clear soups are excellent for replacing sodium and fluids at the same time. Sip on water, diluted fruit juice, or an oral rehydration solution throughout the day. Staying hydrated matters more than eating the “right” foods, so prioritize fluids if you can’t manage much solid food yet.
Probiotics and Gut Recovery
Probiotic-rich foods like yogurt, kefir, and fermented foods can help restore the balance of bacteria in your gut. Research on specific probiotic strains shows real benefits: in a large analysis of clinical trials in children with acute diarrhea, the yeast-based probiotic Saccharomyces boulardii shortened diarrhea duration by roughly 1.25 days compared to placebo and significantly reduced the chance of diarrhea lasting two or more days. Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, commonly found in some yogurt brands, has also been well studied.
You can get these through food or supplements. If you’re choosing yogurt, look for labels that mention live and active cultures. Avoid varieties loaded with sugar, since excess sugar can pull water into the intestines and make diarrhea worse.
Foods and Drinks to Avoid
Some foods actively make diarrhea worse, so knowing what to skip is just as important as knowing what to eat.
- Fried and fatty foods. When fat isn’t absorbed properly in the upper digestive tract, it reaches the colon and gets broken down into fatty acids. These trigger the colon to secrete fluid, worsening diarrhea.
- Caffeine. Coffee, energy drinks, and strong tea speed up your digestive system, pushing contents through before water can be reabsorbed.
- Dairy (for some people). Milk, ice cream, and soft cheeses contain lactose, a sugar that many people struggle to digest even under normal circumstances. During a bout of diarrhea, your ability to break down lactose drops further. Yogurt and aged cheeses are usually better tolerated because fermentation reduces their lactose content.
- Sugary drinks and artificial sweeteners. Fructose, sorbitol, and other poorly absorbed sugars draw water into the intestines. Soda, fruit juice concentrates, and sugar-free candies are common culprits.
- Alcohol. It irritates the gut lining and contributes to dehydration.
- Raw vegetables and high-fiber grains. Whole wheat bread, raw salads, beans, and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli are normally healthy choices, but they’re difficult to digest when your gut is inflamed.
When and How to Start Eating Again
You don’t need to wait long. A Cochrane review of clinical evidence found no increased risk of complications when people began eating within 12 hours of starting rehydration, compared to those who waited 20 to 48 hours. In other words, there’s no benefit to starving your gut. If you feel able to eat, eat.
Start with small amounts of the gentlest foods: a few bites of banana, a small bowl of white rice, some plain toast. If that goes well over a few hours, add in some chicken or eggs. Over the next one to two days, gradually reintroduce a normal diet. Most acute diarrhea resolves within two to three days, and your food choices can return to normal as your stools firm up.
If you’re recovering from a stomach bug, a practical day of eating might look like this: oatmeal or plain toast in the morning, chicken broth with white rice and carrots at midday, and baked chicken with a potato in the evening, with bananas and yogurt as snacks in between. The goal is to keep portions small, eat frequently, and prioritize hydration between meals.