When you have diarrhea, the best approach is to keep eating a balanced, easy-to-digest diet rather than restricting yourself to just a few bland foods. Your gut recovers faster when it gets a range of nutrients, and most cases of acute diarrhea resolve within one to two days on their own. What matters most is choosing foods that won’t irritate your digestive system further while keeping up with fluids and electrolytes.
Why the BRAT Diet Isn’t Enough
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. It’s been passed down as standard advice for decades, but nutrition experts no longer recommend it as a standalone plan. The American Academy of Pediatrics specifically advises against it for children, and gastroenterology guidelines call it “unnecessarily restrictive.”
The problem is simple: those four foods don’t provide enough protein, fat, or micronutrients to support recovery. Sticking to BRAT for more than a day or two can actually slow healing and, in more vulnerable people, contribute to malnutrition. The foods themselves are fine to include, but they should be part of a wider menu, not the entire thing.
Foods That Help
The goal is gentle, nutrient-dense food that gives your body fuel without overwhelming your digestive tract. Soluble fiber is especially useful because it absorbs water in the gut and turns into a gel-like substance, which helps firm up loose stools and slow digestion. Good sources include oatmeal, peeled and cooked potatoes, bananas, and applesauce.
Beyond those, focus on lean proteins and simple carbohydrates:
- Plain white rice or noodles, which are easy to digest and low in fiber
- Baked or steamed chicken or turkey without heavy seasoning
- Eggs, scrambled or boiled
- Toast or crackers made with white flour
- Broth-based soups, which also help replace fluids and sodium
- Cooked carrots, green beans, or squash, peeled when possible
Small, frequent meals tend to sit better than large ones. If eating feels like a chore, start with whatever you can tolerate and build from there. The key principle from current guidelines is clear: prompt feeding with age-appropriate, varied food leads to better outcomes than waiting or restricting your diet.
Foods and Drinks to Avoid
Certain foods actively make diarrhea worse by pulling more water into the intestines or speeding up gut motility. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases lists several categories to skip until you’ve recovered:
- High-fat and fried foods like pizza, fast food, and greasy meals, which are harder to digest
- Caffeine from coffee, tea, energy drinks, and some sodas, which stimulates the intestines
- Alcohol, which irritates the gut lining and promotes dehydration
- Sugary drinks and fruit juices high in fructose, which can draw water into the bowel
- Sugar alcohols found in sugar-free gum and candy (look for ingredients ending in “-ol” like sorbitol or xylitol)
- Dairy products containing lactose, including milk, ice cream, and soft cheeses
The dairy point deserves extra attention. Even if you normally digest milk just fine, a bout of diarrhea can temporarily reduce your ability to process lactose for up to a month afterward. Yogurt with live cultures is typically better tolerated and may even be helpful, but straight milk and ice cream are worth avoiding until things settle down.
Staying Hydrated Is the Priority
Dehydration is the real danger with diarrhea, not the diarrhea itself. Every loose stool pulls water and electrolytes out of your body. Plain water helps, but it doesn’t replace sodium, potassium, or other minerals you’re losing. Oral rehydration solutions are the gold standard because they contain the right balance of salt, sugar, and electrolytes to help your body absorb fluid efficiently.
Clear liquids like soda, chicken broth, and apple juice are often suggested, but they’re actually poor substitutes. They don’t replace potassium or sodium adequately and can sometimes make things worse, particularly in children. Apple juice and flat soda are high in sugar, which can pull more water into the intestines. If you don’t have a commercial rehydration solution, broth-based soups with some salt are a reasonable alternative for adults.
Probiotics and Recovery
Certain probiotic strains can shorten how long diarrhea lasts. The best-studied strain, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (often labeled LGG on supplement packaging), reduced the duration of acute infectious diarrhea by about one day in a meta-analysis of nearly 900 children. The effect was even stronger for diarrhea caused by rotavirus, cutting duration by roughly two days.
Not all probiotics work equally. In a head-to-head trial comparing five different strains, only LGG and a multi-strain mixture significantly reduced diarrhea severity. If you’re going to try a probiotic, check the label for the specific strain rather than grabbing the first option on the shelf. Yogurt with live active cultures provides some probiotic benefit, but at lower concentrations than a supplement.
Getting Back to Normal Eating
Most acute diarrhea clears up within one to two days. Once your stools start to firm up and the frequency drops, you can begin adding foods back into your regular diet. There’s no need for a rigid reintroduction schedule. Start with foods that are easy to digest, like the ones listed above, and gradually reintroduce richer, higher-fiber, and fattier foods over the next few days as you feel comfortable.
For children, the approach is even simpler: continue their usual diet throughout the illness. Breastfed infants should keep breastfeeding. Formula-fed infants should continue their regular formula at full strength. Diluting formula is not recommended, and switching to a specialty formula is rarely necessary. The faster a child returns to normal eating, the shorter the illness tends to last.
Signs That Need Medical Attention
Most diarrhea resolves on its own, but certain symptoms signal something more serious. In adults, contact a doctor if diarrhea lasts more than two days, if you’re passing six or more loose stools daily, or if you develop a high fever, severe abdominal pain, or stools that are black, bloody, or contain pus. Changes in mental state like unusual irritability or extreme fatigue can indicate significant dehydration.
The threshold is lower for children. Diarrhea lasting more than a day, any fever in infants, or refusal to eat or drink for more than a few hours warrants a call to the pediatrician. People who are pregnant, over 65, currently on antibiotics, or have a weakened immune system are more vulnerable to complications and should stay in closer contact with their doctor throughout the illness.