Bland, low-fiber, easy-to-digest foods are the best choices when you’re dealing with diarrhea. The classic starting point is the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast), but you don’t need to limit yourself to just those four items. A wider range of gentle foods can firm up loose stools while giving your body the nutrients and fluids it needs to recover.
The Best Foods to Eat During Diarrhea
The goal is to choose foods that are soft, low in fat, and easy for an irritated gut to process. Beyond bananas, white rice, applesauce, and plain toast, solid options include brothy soups, oatmeal, boiled potatoes, plain crackers, and unsweetened dry cereals. All of these are gentle on the digestive tract and unlikely to make things worse.
Once your stomach starts to settle, you can expand to more nutritious choices that still qualify as bland: cooked squash (butternut or pumpkin), cooked carrots, sweet potatoes without skin, avocado, skinless chicken or turkey, fish, and eggs. These foods provide the protein and vitamins your body needs to actually recover, not just coast through the illness.
Why Soluble Fiber Helps Firm Up Stools
Soluble fiber dissolves in water and forms a gel-like material in your stomach. When you have loose, watery stools, this type of fiber absorbs excess water in the intestines and adds bulk, which helps solidify things. Good sources include oats, bananas, avocados, carrots, and barley. These are also gentle enough to eat when your gut is inflamed.
Insoluble fiber, the kind found in raw vegetables, whole wheat, and seeds, works differently. It speeds up digestion rather than slowing it, which is the opposite of what you want right now. Stick with the soluble variety until symptoms resolve.
Staying Hydrated Is Half the Battle
Diarrhea pulls water and electrolytes out of your body quickly. If you don’t replace them, you’ll feel weak, dizzy, and fatigued, sometimes before the diarrhea itself is even that severe. Potassium is one of the biggest losses. Foods that help replenish it include ripe bananas, potatoes, fish, and meat, as well as apricot or peach nectar if you can tolerate the sugar.
Broth is one of the most practical recovery drinks. Bone broth in particular contains calcium, phosphate, and collagen from slow-cooked bones, and while the health claims around it outpace the research, sipping it throughout the day is an effective way to stay hydrated and get some minerals back in. Plain chicken or vegetable broth works well too.
If you need a more deliberate rehydration approach, the World Health Organization’s oral rehydration formula is simple to make at home: mix half a teaspoon of salt and two tablespoons of sugar into about four and a quarter cups of water. The sugar helps your intestines absorb the water and salt more efficiently.
Foods and Drinks That Make Diarrhea Worse
Sugars are a major trigger. They stimulate the gut to release water and electrolytes into the intestines, which loosens bowel movements further. Fructose is one of the biggest offenders. It shows up naturally in fruits like peaches, pears, cherries, and apples, and it’s added to sodas, juice drinks, and applesauce. People who consume more than 40 to 80 grams of fructose per day are likely to develop diarrhea even when they’re healthy.
Artificial sweeteners, specifically sorbitol, mannitol, and xylitol, are even worse. These sugar alcohols are found in sugar-free gum, candy, and some medications. Your body can’t absorb them well, so they pull water into the intestines and act as a laxative. If you’re chewing sugar-free gum or sucking on sugar-free lozenges while sick, that could be working against you.
Fatty and fried foods are another category to avoid. When fats aren’t absorbed properly in the upper digestive tract, they pass into the colon, where they’re broken down into fatty acids. Those fatty acids cause the colon to secrete fluid, triggering more diarrhea. Creamy sauces, fried chicken, fast food, and rich desserts all fall into this category.
Caffeine and alcohol both stimulate the gut and can worsen symptoms. Stick with water, broth, and diluted electrolyte drinks.
Why You Should Skip Dairy Temporarily
Gut illnesses like stomach flu and food poisoning can temporarily damage the lining of your intestines, reducing the amount of lactase your body produces. Lactase is the enzyme that breaks down lactose, the sugar in milk and dairy products. Without enough of it, dairy passes through undigested and causes gas, bloating, and more diarrhea.
This temporary lactose intolerance typically resolves on its own, but it can take up to eight weeks for the gut lining to fully heal. You don’t necessarily need to avoid all dairy for that long, but it’s worth cutting it out during the acute phase and reintroducing it slowly. Yogurt with live cultures is often tolerated earlier than milk because the bacteria have already partially broken down the lactose.
A Practical Timeline for Eating Again
In the first six hours after symptoms start, especially if vomiting is involved, stick to ice chips. Your stomach needs a break, and forcing food down will likely come right back up.
After about six hours, start sipping clear liquids: water, dilute apple juice, grape juice, or broth. Small, frequent sips work better than gulping a full glass. Assess how your stomach responds before moving on.
After 24 hours, try the BRAT foods or other bland options like plain oatmeal, crackers, or plain grits. Eat small amounts. If those stay down and your stools start to firm up, gradually add the more nutritious bland foods: cooked vegetables, lean proteins, eggs.
Most people are back to their normal diet within about a week. If you rush back to spicy, greasy, or high-fiber foods too soon, you risk a relapse. The transition should feel gradual, not like flipping a switch.
The BRAT Diet Has Limits
The BRAT diet has been recommended for decades, but no studies have ever compared it to other dietary approaches for diarrhea. Its main advantage is that the foods are unlikely to irritate your gut. Its main drawback is that bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast don’t provide much protein, fat, or micronutrient variety. Following it strictly for more than a day or two can leave you short on the nutrients your body needs to repair itself.
A better approach is to use BRAT as a starting point and expand as soon as you can tolerate it. Adding skinless chicken, fish, eggs, cooked squash, and avocado gives you protein and healthy fats without overwhelming your digestive system. The goal isn’t to eat as little as possible. It’s to eat foods that are gentle but still nourishing.