When you’re dealing with uncomfortable gas, the best foods to reach for are simple, easy-to-digest options that produce minimal fermentation in your gut: plain rice, eggs, firm tofu, bananas, grapes, and lean proteins like chicken or fish. These foods move through your digestive system without feeding the gut bacteria that create gas as a byproduct. Equally important is knowing which foods to temporarily avoid, since most intestinal gas comes from bacteria breaking down fibers and sugars your body can’t digest on its own.
Foods That Are Gentle on a Gassy Stomach
The foods least likely to cause gas are those low in fermentable carbohydrates. These are sometimes called low-FODMAP foods, a category developed by researchers to identify exactly which sugars and fibers tend to ferment in the gut. According to the American College of Gastroenterology, the safest options include:
- Grains and starches: White rice, oatmeal, quinoa, potatoes, sourdough bread, corn tortillas, and popcorn
- Fruits: Unripe bananas, grapes, kiwi, oranges, pineapple, and papaya
- Proteins: Chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, beef, pork, firm tofu, and tempeh
Portion size matters here. Some of these foods only stay low-gas in normal serving sizes and can become problematic if you eat large quantities. Stick to moderate portions, especially while your gut is already irritated.
Foods That Make Gas Worse
Most intestinal gas forms when bacteria in your large intestine break down carbohydrates your body couldn’t digest higher up in the digestive tract. Certain foods are packed with these fermentable fibers and sugars, making them the usual suspects when bloating hits.
Cruciferous vegetables are some of the biggest offenders: broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, arugula, turnips, and radishes are all fiber-rich and highly fermentable. Beans and lentils are notorious for the same reason. They contain oligosaccharides, a type of sugar humans lack the enzyme to break down, so gut bacteria handle the job instead and produce gas in the process.
But plenty of less obvious foods cause problems too. Apples, peaches, onions, garlic, carrots, and whole grains all contain significant fermentable fiber. Artificial sweeteners, which are built on indigestible sugar molecules, can trigger gas the same way. And eating more protein than your body needs (roughly above one gram per kilogram of body weight) gives gut bacteria extra fuel, producing not just more gas but particularly foul-smelling gas due to hydrogen sulfide.
How You Eat Matters Too
Swallowed air is a real contributor to bloating and gas. Eating quickly, talking while chewing, drinking through straws, and chewing gum all increase the amount of air that reaches your intestines. Cleveland Clinic recommends chewing slowly and finishing one bite completely before taking the next. It sounds simple, but for people who eat fast by habit, this single change can make a noticeable difference.
If you normally eat large meals, splitting the same amount of food into smaller, more frequent meals reduces the load on your digestive system at any one time, which means less fermentation happening all at once.
Herbal Options That Help With Gas
Peppermint is one of the best-studied natural remedies for intestinal gas. Its active compound, menthol, works by blocking calcium channels in the smooth muscle cells lining your intestines. This relaxes the gut wall, reduces spasms, and helps trapped gas move through and out rather than building up painfully. You can get this effect from peppermint tea or enteric-coated peppermint oil capsules.
Ginger works through a similar pathway, reducing spasms in smooth muscle and helping the digestive tract move contents along more efficiently. Fresh ginger steeped in hot water or added to meals is a practical way to use it. Fennel and chamomile teas are also traditional carminatives (meaning they help expel gas) and are worth trying, though they have less clinical data behind them than peppermint.
Preparing Beans and Legumes to Reduce Gas
If beans and lentils are a regular part of your diet, you don’t necessarily have to give them up. How you prepare them changes their gas-producing potential significantly. Soaking dried beans in water for 12 hours reduces their oligosaccharide content, and soaking in water with a pinch of baking soda removes even more of these sugars than plain water does. The longer you soak, the more oligosaccharides leach out.
Cooking matters even more than soaking. Research published in Food Chemistry found that cooking unsoaked beans actually removed more oligosaccharides than soaking alone for 12 hours. The most effective method is soaking first, then cooking thoroughly. In lab conditions, pressure cooking soaked beans eliminated raffinose (one of the key gas-causing sugars) completely. In practical terms, this means using a pressure cooker or Instant Pot on soaked beans gives you the least gassy result.
Digestive Enzyme Supplements
Over-the-counter products containing alpha-galactosidase (the enzyme in Beano) can help your body break down the oligosaccharides in beans and vegetables before gut bacteria get to them. In clinical testing, people who took alpha-galactosidase had measurably lower gas production, with breath hydrogen levels (a marker of gut fermentation) dropping from about 50 parts per million to 31 parts per million. You take these supplements with your first bite of a gas-producing food for them to work.
For dairy-related gas, lactase supplements serve the same purpose by breaking down lactose before it reaches your large intestine.
What About Probiotics?
Probiotics are widely marketed for digestive comfort, but the evidence for gas relief specifically is mixed and very strain-dependent. A systematic review in the Journal of Clinical Medicine found that most tested probiotic strains, including several popular ones, did not significantly reduce bloating or flatulence. Strains like Bifidobacterium infantis 35624, Lactobacillus plantarum 299v, and Lactobacillus casei Shirota all failed to show meaningful effects on gas symptoms.
One strain that did show broad improvement across digestive symptoms, including flatulence, was Bacillus coagulans Unique IS2. But the overall takeaway is that grabbing a random probiotic off the shelf is unlikely to solve a gas problem. If you want to try one, look for a product listing a specific strain with evidence behind it rather than a generic blend.
Adjusting Your Fiber Intake
If you’ve recently increased your fiber intake, whether through more vegetables, whole grains, or a fiber supplement, that change itself may be the problem. A sudden jump in dietary fiber is one of the most common causes of bloating and cramping. Your gut bacteria population needs time to adjust to new fuel sources.
The fix isn’t to avoid fiber permanently but to increase it gradually over several weeks. Certain types of fiber are also more gas-producing than others. Fibers marketed as prebiotics, including inulin, fructooligosaccharides, and chicory root fiber (common in protein bars and “high fiber” packaged foods), are particularly fermentable and can cause significant gas in sensitive people. Check ingredient labels if packaged high-fiber foods seem to trigger your symptoms.
Signs That Gas Points to Something Bigger
Occasional gas is normal. The average person passes gas 13 to 21 times a day. But gas that persists for weeks, keeps getting worse, or comes with other symptoms can signal an underlying condition like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, where excess bacteria in the small intestine produce abnormal amounts of gas along with diarrhea and weight loss. Bloody stools, unexplained weight loss, persistent nausea or vomiting, or a significant change in your bowel habits alongside chronic gas all warrant a visit to your doctor. Prolonged abdominal pain or any chest pain calls for immediate medical attention.