When your stomach hurts, the best things to eat are soft, bland foods that require minimal digestive effort: think bananas, plain rice, broth, toast, applesauce, boiled potatoes, and eggs. The goal is to give your gut something gentle to work with while avoiding anything that could make the pain, nausea, or bloating worse. What you skip matters just as much as what you choose.
The Best Foods for an Upset Stomach
Bland foods work because they’re soft, low in fiber, and free of strong flavors or fats that force your digestive system to work harder. You don’t need to limit yourself to just bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast (the old “BRAT diet”). Harvard Health Publishing notes it’s reasonable to follow that pattern for a day or two, but there’s no need to restrict yourself to only those four foods. They lack the protein and broader nutrients your body needs to recover.
Here’s a fuller list of stomach-friendly options:
- Starches: White rice, boiled or baked potatoes (no butter), plain crackers, refined white bread or toast, oatmeal, cream of wheat
- Fruits: Bananas, applesauce, canned fruit, melons
- Proteins: Eggs (scrambled or boiled), skinless chicken or turkey, baked white fish, tofu
- Soups: Broth-based soups, especially chicken broth or vegetable broth
- Other: Plain gelatin, popsicles, graham crackers, creamy peanut butter in small amounts
Once your stomach starts to settle, you can expand to cooked squash (butternut or pumpkin), cooked carrots, sweet potatoes without the skin, and avocado. These add more nutrition without being harsh on your gut.
Why Applesauce and Bananas Help
Applesauce isn’t just soft and mild. It contains pectin, a type of soluble fiber that absorbs water in the colon and helps form normal stools. This is particularly useful if your stomach ache comes with diarrhea. Pectin forms a gel-like substance in the lower gut, and the short-chain fatty acids produced as it breaks down promote water absorption in the large intestine. Bananas offer a similar benefit, plus they replace potassium lost through vomiting or diarrhea.
Ginger and Peppermint for Nausea
If nausea is your main symptom, ginger is one of the most reliable natural options. Its active compounds reduce levels of serotonin in the gut, which is the chemical signal that triggers the vomiting reflex. They also block the receptors that serotonin binds to, essentially interrupting the nausea message before it reaches your brain. You can get this effect from fresh ginger sliced into hot water, ginger chews, or weak ginger tea.
Peppermint tea can also help, especially if your stomach ache involves cramping. Peppermint oil relaxes the smooth muscle in your digestive tract by blocking calcium channels in the gut wall, which reduces spasms. One important exception: if your pain is from acid reflux or heartburn, skip peppermint. It relaxes the valve between your stomach and esophagus, which can let acid travel upward and make things worse.
Staying Hydrated Matters More Than Eating
If you’re vomiting or have diarrhea, replacing lost fluids and electrolytes is more urgent than eating solid food. Water alone doesn’t replace the sodium and potassium your body is losing. A simple oral rehydration solution following WHO standards calls for about 4 cups of water, half a teaspoon of salt, and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Sip it slowly rather than drinking large amounts at once.
Other good options include diluted fruit juice, weak tea, clear broth, and electrolyte drinks. Avoid anything carbonated, caffeinated, or high in sugar, all of which can irritate your stomach or pull more water into the gut and worsen diarrhea.
Foods That Will Make It Worse
Some foods are obvious culprits, but others might surprise you.
- Fatty or fried foods: Dietary fats slow digestion, leaving you feeling uncomfortably full. They also increase pressure on the valve at the top of your stomach, which can trigger heartburn.
- Dairy: Even if you’re not lactose intolerant, full-fat dairy is hard to digest when your stomach is already struggling. If you want dairy, stick to low-fat or fat-free options.
- Spicy foods: Capsaicin, the compound that makes peppers hot, can cause indigestion and heartburn even in people who normally tolerate spice well.
- Raw vegetables and salads: These require significant digestive work. Cooked vegetables are a much safer choice.
- Gas-producing vegetables: Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and beans can add bloating and cramping on top of existing pain.
- Whole grains, seeds, and nuts: High-fiber, rough-textured foods are too abrasive for an irritated stomach lining.
- Alcohol and caffeine: Both stimulate acid production and can irritate the stomach wall directly.
Skip the Apple Cider Vinegar
You’ll find countless recommendations online to drink apple cider vinegar for stomach pain or heartburn. There is no published research in medical journals supporting this use. The popular theory is that adding acid helps a sluggish stomach, but the valve controlling acid reflux is regulated by a complex network of muscles, hormones, and neurotransmitters, not simply by how acidic your stomach is. Drinking vinegar on an already irritated stomach can make pain and nausea worse.
Adding Probiotics After Recovery
Fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, and sauerkraut are great for gut health in general, but they’re not ideal during active stomach pain. Fermented foods can increase gas and bloating when your digestive system is inflamed. A better approach is to introduce them once you’re feeling mostly recovered. Continuing probiotic-rich foods for a few weeks after a stomach bug can help restore the balance of bacteria in your gut that illness disrupts.
A Simple Timeline for Eating
In the first few hours of stomach pain, focus entirely on small sips of fluids. Don’t force yourself to eat. Once nausea eases and you feel ready, start with the blandest options: plain crackers, white toast, a few spoonfuls of rice, or broth. Eat small amounts and wait to see how your stomach responds before eating more.
Over the next day or two, add in soft proteins like eggs or plain chicken, along with applesauce and bananas. By day three or four, most people can start reintroducing their normal diet, beginning with cooked vegetables and lean proteins before adding back fats, fiber, and seasoning. If your stomach pain hasn’t improved after 48 hours, or if you develop a high fever, bloody stool, persistent vomiting, or sharp pain that worsens, those are signs that something beyond a routine stomach ache may be going on and you need medical evaluation.