When your stomach is upset, the best things to eat are bland, low-fiber foods that require minimal digestion: plain toast, bananas, white rice, applesauce, and plain crackers. But what you eat depends on where you are in the process. If you’re actively vomiting, start with liquids only and work your way up to solid food over several hours.
Start With Liquids, Not Food
If you’ve been throwing up, don’t eat anything right away. Give your stomach a break for a couple of hours. Then start with ice chips or small sips of water every 15 minutes. The goal is to prove your stomach can keep something down before you ask it to do real work.
Once water stays down, move to other clear fluids: clear broth, diluted electrolyte drinks, or ice pops. Broth is especially useful because it replaces sodium you’ve lost. If you’re dealing with both vomiting and diarrhea, an oral rehydration solution (sold at most pharmacies and grocery stores) is your best option. These drinks contain a balanced mix of sugar and salt that helps your gut absorb water more efficiently. Even though homemade versions exist, the commercial ones are reliable and convenient.
Sip slowly. Gulping a full glass of water on an empty, irritated stomach often triggers another round of nausea.
The Best Solid Foods for an Upset Stomach
Once you’ve kept liquids down for a few hours and your appetite starts creeping back, ease in with small amounts of bland food. The classics work well here:
- Bananas: Easy to digest, naturally alkaline, and a good source of potassium, which you lose during vomiting and diarrhea.
- Plain white rice: Low in fiber, gentle on the gut, and filling enough to give you some energy.
- Toast or crackers: Plain, white-bread versions only. Whole grain adds fiber your stomach doesn’t need right now.
- Applesauce: The cooked, pureed form of apple is far easier to digest than a raw one.
- Plain oatmeal: A step up in substance without being heavy. Skip any added sugar or flavoring.
You might recognize these as the old “BRAT diet” (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast). It’s still a reasonable starting point, but it’s not nutritionally complete. Don’t limit yourself to just those four foods for more than a day or two. As soon as your stomach can handle it, start mixing in other low-fat, low-fiber options like plain chicken, steamed potatoes, or soft-cooked eggs.
Eat small portions slowly, and eat more frequently if you’re hungry. Three large meals are harder on a recovering stomach than five or six small ones spread through the day.
Ginger for Nausea
Ginger is one of the few natural remedies with solid clinical evidence behind it. The active compounds in ginger root work on the same receptors in your gut that anti-nausea medications target, helping to calm the signals that make you feel sick and speeding up the rate at which your stomach empties.
A systematic review of clinical trials found that roughly 1,500 mg of ginger per day, split into smaller doses, is effective for nausea relief. In practical terms, that’s about a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger steeped in hot water as tea, or a few ginger chews throughout the day. Even 500 mg daily has been shown to reduce nausea after surgery. Look for products made with real ginger root rather than ginger flavoring. Ginger ale, despite its reputation, often contains very little actual ginger.
Peppermint for Cramping
If your upset stomach comes with cramping or spasms, peppermint can help. The menthol in peppermint relaxes the smooth muscle lining your digestive tract by reducing calcium flow into muscle cells, which is essentially the same mechanism some prescription anti-spasm medications use. Peppermint tea is the simplest option. Sip it warm between meals rather than with food, since relaxing the valve at the top of your stomach while eating can sometimes worsen acid reflux.
Foods and Drinks to Avoid
Your stomach is inflamed and working at reduced capacity. Certain foods will make that worse:
- Dairy: After a stomach virus, your gut can temporarily lose the ability to digest lactose, the sugar in milk. This means milk, cheese, and ice cream may trigger more cramping and diarrhea even if you normally tolerate them fine. This temporary intolerance can last days to a couple of weeks after illness.
- Citrus fruits and tomatoes: Their high acidity irritates an already sensitive stomach lining. Stick with alkaline fruits like bananas, melons, and watermelon instead.
- Fried or fatty food: Fat slows stomach emptying, which prolongs that heavy, nauseated feeling.
- Spicy food: It can irritate the stomach lining and worsen nausea.
- Caffeine and alcohol: Both are dehydrating and can increase stomach acid production. Coffee is particularly rough on an irritated gut.
- Carbonated drinks: The gas can cause bloating and put pressure on an already uncomfortable stomach.
Probiotics Can Shorten Recovery
If your upset stomach is caused by a stomach bug or food poisoning, probiotics may help you recover faster. The most studied strain for acute diarrhea is Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (often labeled “LGG” on supplement packaging). A meta-analysis found that LGG shortened the duration of diarrhea by roughly 24 hours on average, and high-dose LGG cut rotavirus-related diarrhea by about 31 hours. That’s nearly a full day and a half of feeling better sooner.
Yogurt is a common probiotic source, but since dairy can be problematic during stomach illness, a supplement capsule or a dairy-free probiotic drink is a better choice in the short term.
How to Transition Back to Normal Eating
Most people can return to their regular diet within two to three days, following a gradual progression. The timeline looks roughly like this:
- First few hours: Clear liquids only (water, broth, electrolyte drinks).
- After liquids stay down: Small portions of bland solids (toast, rice, bananas).
- Day two: Add lean proteins like plain chicken or eggs, soft-cooked vegetables, and simple starches.
- Day three onward: Gradually reintroduce your normal foods, adding back dairy, fiber, and fats one at a time so you can identify anything that still bothers you.
The key word is gradual. Your digestive system needs time to rebuild its normal enzyme production and bacterial balance, especially after a viral illness. Jumping straight to a cheeseburger on day two is a reliable way to end up right back where you started.