Stick with bland, low-fiber, low-fat foods that are easy to digest: plain white rice, bananas, toast, broth-based soups, boiled potatoes, and oatmeal. These foods won’t irritate your gut further, and some actively help firm up loose stools. Just as important is replacing the fluid and electrolytes you’re losing, which can happen faster than most people expect.
The Best Foods to Start With
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. It’s been recommended for decades, and those four foods are genuinely gentle on an upset gut. But there’s no reason to limit yourself to just those four. Brothy soups, boiled potatoes, crackers, unsweetened dry cereal, and plain oatmeal are all equally easy to digest and give you more variety to work with.
Bananas are especially useful because they’re rich in potassium, an electrolyte you lose in large amounts during diarrhea. White rice and toast made from white bread are low in fiber, which means they won’t speed things through your intestines the way whole grains can. Applesauce contains pectin, a type of soluble fiber that dissolves in water and forms a gel in your stomach. Soluble fiber absorbs excess water in the bowel and adds bulk to stool, which is exactly what you want when everything is too loose.
For protein, go with tender, well-cooked chicken or turkey (no skin), fish, eggs, or smooth nut butters if you tolerate them. Keep preparation simple: baked, boiled, or steamed with minimal added fat. Fat that isn’t absorbed properly in the upper digestive tract travels to the colon, where bacteria break it down into fatty acids that trigger the colon to secrete even more fluid.
Hydration Matters More Than Food
Replacing lost fluid is the single most important thing you can do. Diarrhea pulls water and electrolytes into the bowel, and if you’re going frequently, you can become dehydrated within hours. Water alone isn’t ideal because it doesn’t replace the sodium and potassium you’re losing. An oral rehydration solution works better than sports drinks, which often contain too much sugar and the wrong balance of minerals.
You can make one at home using the World Health Organization’s recipe: mix 4 cups of water with half a teaspoon of salt and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Sip it steadily throughout the day rather than gulping large amounts at once. Store-bought options like Pedialyte use the same principle. If you’re also vomiting, start with ice chips and work up to small sips once things stay down.
Foods and Drinks to Avoid
Some foods actively make diarrhea worse by pulling more water into the intestines or speeding up gut contractions.
- Sugary foods and drinks. Sugar stimulates the gut to secrete water and electrolytes. Fructose is one of the biggest offenders. It’s concentrated in fruit juices, sodas, candy, and baked goods. Consuming more than 40 to 80 grams of fructose per day can cause diarrhea on its own, even in a healthy gut.
- Sugar alcohols. Sorbitol, mannitol, and xylitol (found in sugar-free gum, candy, and some medications) are poorly absorbed and have a strong laxative effect.
- Fried and fatty foods. French fries, donuts, chips, and anything cooked in a lot of oil can overwhelm your digestive system’s ability to absorb fat, sending it to the colon where it triggers more fluid secretion.
- Dairy products. Even if you normally tolerate milk and cheese just fine, illness can temporarily damage the lining of the small intestine, reducing your ability to break down lactose. Undigested lactose draws water into the intestine and gets fermented by bacteria in the colon, producing gas, bloating, and more loose stools. This temporary lactose intolerance can last days to weeks after the infection clears.
- Coffee. Both regular and decaf coffee stimulate gut muscle contractions through compounds that act on nerve receptors in the intestinal wall. This isn’t just a caffeine effect. Decaf coffee produces the same contractile response, so switching to decaf won’t help.
- Insoluble fiber. Leafy greens, raw vegetable and fruit skins, popcorn, nuts, seeds, and beans add bulk that speeds transit through the colon. Save these for after you’ve recovered.
- Spicy and acidic foods. Citrus fruits, tomato sauces, vinegar-based dressings, and hot peppers can irritate an already inflamed gut lining.
A Practical Timeline for Eating Again
If your diarrhea started with vomiting (food poisoning, stomach flu), the first 6 hours are about keeping things down rather than eating. Suck on ice chips or a plain popsicle. Once that stays down, move to sipping clear liquids: water, diluted apple or grape juice, or plain broth. Keep everything flat and transparent. Avoid carbonated drinks.
After about 24 hours, or once you can keep liquids down reliably, start with the bland foods described above: rice, bananas, toast, oatmeal, broth-based soups. Eat small amounts frequently rather than full meals. If your diarrhea started without vomiting, you can go straight to this stage.
Once your stools start firming up and you’ve had a solid 24 hours without worsening, gradually reintroduce more nutritious foods. Cooked squash (butternut or pumpkin), cooked carrots, sweet potatoes without skin, avocado, and skinless poultry are good next steps. Add one or two new foods at a time so you can identify anything that triggers a setback. Most people can return to their normal diet within 3 to 5 days.
Probiotics Can Shorten Recovery
One specific probiotic yeast, Saccharomyces boulardii, has solid evidence behind it for acute diarrhea. A meta-analysis of five trials involving over 600 children found that it reduced the duration of diarrhea by about one day compared to placebo. In one trial, the group taking it recovered in about 3 days versus nearly 5 days for the control group. The typical adult dose is 500 mg once daily for prevention or twice daily during active symptoms. It’s available over the counter in most pharmacies. Other probiotic strains have weaker or more mixed evidence for diarrhea specifically, so if you’re going to try one, this is the strain to look for.
Signs You’re Getting Dehydrated
Watch for dark-colored urine or urinating much less than usual. These are the earliest reliable signs. As dehydration progresses, you may notice extreme thirst, dizziness when standing, fatigue that feels disproportionate, or skin on the back of your hand that stays “tented” for a moment after you pinch it instead of snapping back flat. Confusion or unusual sleepiness signals severe dehydration that needs medical attention. The same is true if diarrhea lasts more than 24 hours without improvement, if you see blood or black color in your stool, or if you develop a fever above 102°F.