When you’re nauseous, plain, starchy foods like crackers, toast, rice, and bananas are your safest options. They’re easy to digest, unlikely to trigger vomiting, and gentle enough to keep your blood sugar stable while your stomach settles. But you don’t need to limit yourself to just those foods, and how you eat matters almost as much as what you eat.
Best Foods When You Feel Nauseous
Start with whatever sounds the least offensive. For most people, that means bland, low-fat foods with minimal smell. Dry crackers, plain toast, white rice, bananas, and applesauce are classic starting points because they require very little digestive effort. Brothy soups, oatmeal, boiled potatoes, and unsweetened dry cereal also fall into this category.
Once your stomach starts to settle, you can expand to more nutritious options: cooked carrots, sweet potatoes without skin, butternut or pumpkin squash, avocado, skinless chicken or turkey, fish, and eggs. These are still easy to digest but provide the protein and nutrients your body needs to recover. There’s no reason to stay on crackers and toast for days. A day or two of very bland eating is reasonable during a stomach bug or food poisoning, but adding back nutrient-dense foods as soon as you can tolerate them helps you bounce back faster.
Foods and Smells to Avoid
Greasy, fried, and heavily spiced foods slow digestion and can make nausea worse. Dairy products, very sweet foods, and anything with a strong aroma are also common triggers. If cooking smells bother you, cold or room-temperature foods tend to have less odor than hot ones. Think plain sandwiches, chilled fruit, or cold cereal rather than a plate of something fresh off the stove.
How You Eat Matters
Eating four to six small meals throughout the day instead of three large ones puts less pressure on your stomach at any given time. A large meal forces your stomach to work harder, which can ramp up nausea. Think of “small” as a few bites to half a normal portion. You can always eat again in an hour or two.
Eat slowly and stop before you feel full. Sitting upright during and after eating also helps, since lying down can slow digestion and push stomach contents toward your esophagus.
Staying Hydrated Without Making It Worse
Dehydration is the biggest risk when nausea leads to vomiting, and it creates a vicious cycle: dehydration itself makes nausea worse. The key is small, frequent sips rather than gulping a full glass. Start with about a teaspoon (5 mL) every five minutes and gradually increase as your stomach tolerates it.
Water is fine for mild nausea, but if you’ve been vomiting, you’re losing electrolytes too. Premixed oral rehydration solutions (available at any pharmacy or grocery store) are designed to replace both fluids and electrolytes efficiently. Sports drinks work in a pinch, though they contain more sugar than ideal. Broth is another good option since it provides sodium naturally. Avoid carbonated drinks, alcohol, and anything highly acidic like orange juice, all of which can irritate an already sensitive stomach.
Ginger: The Best-Studied Natural Remedy
Ginger has more clinical evidence behind it than almost any other food-based nausea remedy. Its active compounds work by blocking serotonin receptors in the gut, the same receptors that many prescription anti-nausea medications target. Ginger also helps speed up gastric emptying, meaning food moves through your stomach faster instead of sitting there making you feel worse.
You don’t need much. Studies show that up to 1 gram per day (about half a teaspoon of ground ginger) taken for several days can reduce vomiting episodes significantly. Practical ways to get it: ginger tea made from fresh slices steeped in hot water, ginger chews or candies, or even flat ginger ale made with real ginger (check the label, since many brands use artificial flavoring). Ginger capsules are available if the taste bothers you.
Peppermint for Quick Relief
Peppermint works differently from ginger. It relaxes the smooth muscles in your digestive tract, reducing the spasms and contractions that contribute to nausea. Even just smelling peppermint essential oil can help. In clinical settings, patients exposed to peppermint aromatherapy experienced nausea that was roughly half as frequent and lasted about half as long compared to those who weren’t.
Peppermint tea is the easiest option. Sucking on a peppermint candy can also work, though skip this if your nausea is related to acid reflux, since peppermint relaxes the valve between your stomach and esophagus, which can make reflux worse.
Vitamin B6 for Pregnancy Nausea
If your nausea is related to pregnancy, vitamin B6 is one of the first-line recommendations from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The typical recommendation is 10 to 25 mg taken three or four times a day. When combined with an antihistamine called doxylamine (sold over the counter as a sleep aid), studies show a 70% reduction in nausea and vomiting. This combination is considered safe during pregnancy, though it’s worth discussing with your provider since dosing matters.
B6-rich foods include chickpeas, bananas, potatoes, and poultry. You likely won’t get therapeutic amounts from food alone during severe morning sickness, but these foods can complement a supplement.
When Nausea Signals Something Serious
Most nausea passes within a day or two and doesn’t need medical attention. But certain combinations of symptoms point to something more urgent. Seek emergency care if your nausea comes with chest pain, severe abdominal cramping, confusion, blurred vision, a high fever with a stiff neck, or rectal bleeding.
Go to urgent care or the emergency room if your vomit contains blood, looks like coffee grounds, or is green. The same applies if you’re showing signs of dehydration: very dark urine, dry mouth, dizziness when standing, or extreme thirst.
For adults, vomiting that lasts more than two days warrants a call to your doctor. For children under two, the threshold is 24 hours. For infants, it’s 12 hours. Recurring bouts of nausea lasting more than a month, or unexplained weight loss alongside nausea, also need medical evaluation.