When you have diarrhea, the best things to eat are bland, easy-to-digest foods that are low in fat and fiber—think rice, bananas, toast, eggs, and plain chicken. But you don’t need to limit yourself to just a handful of foods. The goal is to keep eating and stay hydrated, because your body needs calories and nutrients to recover.
Why You Should Keep Eating
You might feel like avoiding food altogether, but that slows your recovery. Most experts, including those at the National Institutes of Health, don’t recommend fasting or following a highly restrictive diet when you have diarrhea. Once you feel like eating, you should eat. The old-school RICE or BIST advice of sticking only to rice, bananas, applesauce, and toast for days is outdated. Those foods are fine as a starting point, but there’s no reason to eat only those four things.
A better approach: start with gentle foods, then expand your plate as your stomach settles. You want to get protein, some vitamins, and enough calories alongside the bland carbs.
The Best Foods to Eat
The foods that work best during a bout of diarrhea share a few traits: they’re soft, low in fat, low in insoluble fiber, and easy to digest. Build your meals around these:
- Starchy, low-fiber carbs: white rice, white bread, plain crackers, plain pasta, oatmeal
- Cooked vegetables: carrots, butternut squash, pumpkin, peeled potatoes, sweet potatoes without skin
- Fruit: bananas, applesauce, canned peaches (in juice, not syrup)
- Lean protein: skinless chicken or turkey, eggs, fish, tofu
- Other: plain broth or soup, avocado, smooth peanut butter
Soluble fiber, the kind found in oatmeal, bananas, and cooked carrots, actually helps firm up loose stools. It absorbs water in your gut and forms a gel-like substance that adds bulk. This is different from the rough, insoluble fiber in raw vegetables and whole grains, which can make things worse.
When cooking, keep it simple. Steaming, boiling, baking, and poaching are all gentle on your digestive system. Avoid frying or heavy sauces.
Foods and Drinks to Avoid
Certain foods actively make diarrhea worse by pulling water into your intestines or speeding up digestion.
Fatty and fried foods are the biggest culprits. When fat isn’t absorbed properly in the upper digestive tract, it travels to the colon, where it gets broken down into compounds that trigger the colon to release fluid. That means more watery stools. Skip greasy takeout, fried chicken, creamy sauces, and rich desserts until you’re fully recovered.
Sugar, especially fructose, draws water into your intestines. People who consume a lot of fructose, found naturally in pears, cherries, and peaches, and added to soft drinks and juice, can trigger diarrhea even when they’re healthy. During a bout, even moderate amounts can make things worse. Avoid fruit juice, soda, and candy.
Artificial sweeteners like sorbitol, mannitol, and xylitol, commonly found in sugar-free gum and candy, have a similar water-pulling effect and can worsen diarrhea significantly.
Caffeine speeds up your entire digestive tract. Coffee, energy drinks, strong tea, and chocolate all contain it. This is not the time for your morning espresso.
Alcohol is a triple threat. It pulls water into your intestines, speeds up contractions in your digestive tract, and irritates the intestinal lining. It also disrupts the balance of gut bacteria. Avoid it completely until you’re better.
Be Careful with Dairy
Here’s something most people don’t know: even if you normally digest dairy just fine, diarrhea can temporarily make you lactose intolerant. When your intestinal lining gets inflamed, especially from a stomach bug, it can damage the cells that produce lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose in milk. This means milk, ice cream, and soft cheese may cause bloating, cramping, and more diarrhea for the time being.
This temporary lactose intolerance can last for several weeks after the diarrhea itself has stopped, sometimes a month or longer. You don’t have to avoid all dairy forever. Just steer clear of it while you’re sick, then reintroduce it gradually. Hard cheeses and yogurt are usually tolerated earlier than milk because they contain less lactose.
Staying Hydrated Matters Most
Replacing lost fluids is more important than any food choice. Diarrhea flushes water and electrolytes out of your body quickly, and dehydration is the main risk, especially for young children and older adults.
Drink water throughout the day. Broth-based soups are excellent because they provide sodium. Oral rehydration solutions, available at any pharmacy, contain the right balance of salt and sugar to help your body absorb water efficiently. Coconut water and diluted sports drinks can also help, though full-strength sports drinks often contain too much sugar.
Avoid the drinks listed above: coffee, alcohol, and sugary juice all worsen fluid loss.
Whether Probiotics Help
Certain probiotic strains can shorten a bout of diarrhea. The two with the most evidence are Saccharomyces boulardii (a beneficial yeast) and Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG. In studies of acute diarrhea, S. boulardii reduced the duration of illness by roughly one and a half days compared to no treatment. Both strains are available over the counter in capsule or powder form.
Probiotics aren’t a cure, but they can help restore the balance of your gut bacteria, especially after a stomach bug. If you want to try them, start early in your illness rather than waiting.
When to Move Back to Normal Eating
Most people can return to their regular diet as soon as they feel up to it. There’s no required waiting period. If your appetite comes back and your stools are starting to firm up, go ahead and eat normally.
That said, ease in gradually. Add back cooked vegetables and lean protein first, then raw fruits and vegetables, then fattier foods last. Remember that dairy may give you trouble for a few weeks after recovery, so reintroduce it slowly.
If you still have diarrhea after 48 hours, can’t keep fluids down, notice blood or black color in your stool, or develop a fever above 102°F, those are signs something more serious may be happening.