When you’re throwing up, the best thing to eat is nothing at all, at least for the first few hours. Your stomach needs a short break before you introduce anything, even water. Once the vomiting slows down, you’ll work your way back through a simple progression: ice chips, then clear liquids, then bland soft foods. The whole process typically takes 24 to 48 hours.
Start With Liquids, Not Food
After your last episode of vomiting, give your stomach a grace period of a few hours with nothing going in. Trying to eat or drink too soon often triggers another round. When you’re ready to start, suck on ice chips or take very small sips of water every 15 minutes. The goal isn’t to quench your thirst all at once. It’s to test whether your stomach will keep anything down.
If plain water stays down for an hour or so, you can move on to other clear liquids: broth, diluted apple juice, weak tea, or an oral rehydration solution like Pedialyte. Oral rehydration solutions work better than plain water because they contain a balanced ratio of sodium and glucose that helps your intestines absorb fluid more efficiently. This matters because vomiting depletes both water and electrolytes, and replacing one without the other slows your recovery.
Sports drinks are a common go-to, but they contain more sugar than your stomach needs right now. If that’s all you have, dilute it with water by half. Flat ginger ale is fine in small amounts, though it won’t rehydrate you as effectively as a proper electrolyte drink.
Ginger Can Help With Nausea
Ginger genuinely reduces nausea. It works by blocking specific receptors in your gut and nervous system that trigger the vomiting reflex. Clinical studies across different populations, including pregnant women and chemotherapy patients, consistently show benefits at doses around 1,000 mg per day, though effective doses in research have ranged from 600 to 2,500 mg daily.
You don’t need supplements to get there. Ginger tea made from fresh ginger root, ginger chews, or even ginger popsicles can help settle your stomach while also putting a small amount of fluid back in. Just avoid ginger candies that are mostly sugar, since concentrated sweetness can make nausea worse.
What to Eat Once You Can Keep Liquids Down
Once clear liquids are staying down reliably for several hours, you can start with small amounts of bland, soft food. The old advice was to stick strictly to the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast), but that’s no longer the standard recommendation. The BRAT diet lacks protein, calcium, and several vitamins, and following it for more than a day or two can actually slow recovery, especially in children. The American Academy of Pediatrics no longer recommends it as a strict protocol.
Instead, think of BRAT as a starting point, then expand to other gentle foods as soon as you can tolerate them. Good early options include:
- Starchy, low-fiber foods: plain white rice, boiled potatoes, saltine crackers, white toast, oatmeal, dry cereal
- Soft fruits: bananas, applesauce, canned fruit, melon
- Brothy soups: chicken broth, vegetable broth, simple noodle soup
- Popsicles and gelatin: easy to get down and mildly hydrating
When your stomach feels more settled, typically 12 to 24 hours after you start tolerating bland food, add in slightly more substantial options: scrambled eggs, skinless baked chicken or turkey, steamed vegetables, plain pasta, and creamy peanut butter on crackers. These give you the protein and nutrients your body needs to recover without overwhelming your digestive system.
Eat small amounts frequently rather than full meals. A few bites every hour or two puts far less stress on your stomach than trying to eat a full plate.
Foods That Will Make It Worse
Certain foods slow down the rate your stomach empties, which directly worsens nausea, bloating, and the urge to vomit. High-fat foods are the biggest offenders. Research on digestive symptoms found that high-fat solid meals caused the most significant increases in nausea, abdominal pain, bloating, and fullness compared to any other meal type. Low-fat liquid meals, by contrast, produced the least nausea. That’s the principle behind the liquids-first approach.
Until you’re feeling significantly better, avoid:
- Fatty or fried foods: pizza, burgers, fried chicken, anything greasy
- Spicy foods: these irritate an already inflamed stomach lining
- Acidic foods: citrus fruits, tomato sauce, orange juice
- High-fiber or roughage-heavy foods: raw vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts
- Full-fat dairy: whole milk, cheese, ice cream (low-fat dairy in small amounts is fine once you’re tolerating solids)
- Caffeine and alcohol: both are dehydrating and can irritate your stomach
The pattern is simple: bland, sweet, salty, and starchy foods tend to relieve symptoms. Fatty, acidic, spicy, and fibrous foods tend to provoke them.
How to Tell If You’re Getting Dehydrated
The biggest risk from repeated vomiting isn’t the vomiting itself. It’s dehydration. Your body loses significant fluid and electrolytes with every episode, and if you can’t keep liquids down, that deficit builds fast.
Watch for these signs in adults: dark yellow urine, urinating much less than normal, extreme thirst, dizziness, fatigue, confusion, or skin that stays “tented” (doesn’t flatten back immediately) when you pinch it. In infants and young children, warning signs include no wet diapers for three hours, no tears when crying, a dry mouth, sunken eyes, rapid heart rate, and unusual irritability or lethargy.
If you can’t keep any fluids down for an extended period, if there’s blood or black color in your vomit or stool, or if you develop a fever above 102°F, those are signs that need medical attention rather than home management.
A Simple Timeline
Here’s the practical sequence most people follow:
- Hours 0 to 2 after vomiting: Nothing by mouth. Let your stomach rest.
- Hours 2 to 6: Ice chips, then small sips of water every 15 minutes. If that stays down, move to broth, ginger tea, or an oral rehydration solution.
- Hours 6 to 24: If liquids are staying down, try small amounts of bland starchy foods. Crackers, plain toast, rice, banana. Keep portions tiny.
- Day 2 and beyond: Gradually add protein and cooked vegetables. Scrambled eggs, baked chicken, steamed carrots. Return to your normal diet as your appetite allows.
Everyone recovers at a different pace. Some people are eating normally within 24 hours. Others need two or three days of gentle eating before their stomach fully cooperates. The key is to follow your body’s signals: if something makes you queasy, back up a step and try again later.