When you have diarrhea, the best foods are bland, low-fiber, and easy to digest: white rice, bananas, plain toast, broth-based soups, boiled potatoes, oatmeal, and crackers. These foods give your gut a chance to recover without triggering more cramping or loose stools. What you avoid matters just as much as what you eat, since certain common foods and drinks can make things significantly worse.
Start With Bland, Easy-to-Digest Foods
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. It’s a fine starting point for the first day or two, but there’s no reason to limit yourself to just those four items. Brothy soups, oatmeal, boiled potatoes, crackers, and unsweetened dry cereals are equally gentle on the stomach. The goal is to eat foods that are soft, low in fat, and unlikely to irritate an already inflamed digestive tract.
Once your stomach starts to settle, usually after 24 to 48 hours, you can expand to more nutritious options. Good choices include cooked carrots, butternut or pumpkin squash, sweet potatoes without the skin, and avocado. These foods provide vitamins and minerals your body is losing while keeping digestion manageable.
Lean Proteins That Won’t Make Things Worse
Your body needs protein to recover, but how that protein is prepared matters. Stick with tender, well-cooked meat, poultry, fish, eggs, or tofu prepared without added fat. Baking, steaming, or boiling are your best options. Smooth nut butters are also fine if you tolerate them.
What to skip: fried chicken, bacon, sausage, hot dogs, bologna, salami, and fatty or gristly cuts of meat. These are high in fat and hard to digest, which can increase cramping and speed up intestinal contractions. Whole nuts and chunky nut butters can also be rough on a sensitive gut.
Why Soluble Fiber Helps (and Insoluble Fiber Doesn’t)
Not all fiber is the same during a bout of diarrhea. Soluble fiber dissolves in water and forms a gel-like material in your stomach, which slows digestion and helps absorb excess fluid in the intestines. This can actually firm up loose, watery stools. Good sources of soluble fiber include oats, bananas, avocados, carrots, barley, and applesauce.
Insoluble fiber does the opposite. It doesn’t dissolve in water and speeds the movement of material through your digestive system, which is helpful for constipation but counterproductive during diarrhea. Avoid high-insoluble-fiber foods like whole wheat bread, wheat bran, raw vegetables, cauliflower, and green beans until you’ve fully recovered.
Fruits to Choose and Fruits to Avoid
Some fruits are safe and even helpful during diarrhea, while others contain high levels of fructose or sugar alcohols that can pull water into the intestines and worsen symptoms. Limit yourself to one small portion of fruit at a time, up to two portions per day.
- Good choices: ripe bananas, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, oranges, peaches, kiwi, and pineapple. These are lower in fructose and generally well tolerated.
- Avoid for now: apples, pears, cherries, grapes, mango, watermelon, and dried fruit of any kind. These are high in fructose or polyols that act as natural laxatives.
Fruit juice and smoothies should also be avoided, even from “safe” fruits. Juicing concentrates the sugars and removes the fiber that would otherwise slow absorption.
Drinks That Help and Drinks That Hurt
Staying hydrated is the single most important thing during diarrhea. Water, clear broths, and oral rehydration solutions replace both fluid and the electrolytes (sodium, potassium) you’re losing with each loose stool. Take small, frequent sips rather than drinking large amounts at once.
Coffee, tea, and other caffeinated drinks have a laxative effect. More than two or three cups a day can cause diarrhea on their own, so during an active episode they’ll only make things worse. Alcohol, particularly beer and wine, also promotes loose stools and should be avoided until you’re fully recovered.
Skip the Sugar-Free Products
Sugar-free candies, gum, protein bars, and some “diet” drinks are sweetened with sugar alcohols like sorbitol, mannitol, and xylitol. These compounds aren’t fully absorbed in the small intestine. Instead, they draw water into the gut through osmosis, essentially functioning as a laxative. A CDC investigation once traced an outbreak of diarrhea directly to dietetic candies containing just 3 grams of sorbitol each. Check ingredient labels and avoid anything listing sugar alcohols while your symptoms are active.
Hold Off on Dairy
An infection that causes diarrhea can temporarily damage the lining of the small intestine, reducing your ability to digest lactose, the sugar in milk. This temporary lactose intolerance typically resolves within three to four weeks as the intestinal lining heals, but during that window, milk, ice cream, soft cheeses, and cream-based soups can trigger more bloating, gas, and diarrhea.
Yogurt is often tolerated better than milk because the fermentation process breaks down some of the lactose. If you want to try dairy, start with a small amount of plain yogurt and see how your body responds before adding other dairy products back.
Probiotics Can Shorten Recovery
Certain probiotic strains can meaningfully reduce how long diarrhea lasts. In children with rotavirus diarrhea, a specific strain called Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG shortened episodes by about two days compared to placebo. Another strain, Lactobacillus reuteri, reduced diarrhea duration by roughly 25 hours in a large analysis of over 1,200 children. For antibiotic-associated diarrhea, both Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Saccharomyces boulardii (a beneficial yeast) have shown effectiveness at doses of 5 billion colony-forming units or more per day.
You can get probiotics from supplements or from fermented foods like plain yogurt, kefir, kimchi, and sauerkraut, though supplements allow more precise dosing. Look for products that list specific strains and colony counts on the label.
A Practical Timeline for Eating
During the first 24 hours, focus on clear fluids, broth, and the blandest foods you can manage: plain rice, toast, crackers, bananas. Don’t force yourself to eat large meals. Small, frequent portions are easier on the gut.
On days two and three, if symptoms are improving, add boiled potatoes, oatmeal, cooked carrots, eggs, and plain chicken or fish. Keep portions small and preparation simple: no added fat, no heavy seasoning, no spicy sauces.
By the end of the first week, most people can gradually return to their normal diet. Reintroduce foods one at a time so you can identify anything that triggers a setback. Dairy, raw vegetables, high-fiber grains, and fatty foods should be the last things you add back. If diarrhea persists beyond a week, or you notice blood in your stool, fever, or signs of dehydration like dark urine or dizziness, that warrants medical attention.