When you have a stomach bug, the best foods are bland, easy-to-digest options like bananas, rice, toast, brothy soups, boiled potatoes, and crackers. The goal is to keep calories and fluids coming in without irritating your already inflamed digestive tract. Most people can start eating again as soon as their appetite returns, even if diarrhea hasn’t fully resolved.
Start With Fluids, Then Add Bland Foods
The first priority with a stomach bug isn’t food at all. It’s fluids. Vomiting and diarrhea drain water and electrolytes fast, and dehydration is the main reason stomach bugs become dangerous. Small, frequent sips of water, diluted juice, or an oral rehydration solution work better than gulping down a full glass, which can trigger more vomiting. Broth is particularly useful because it replaces both fluid and sodium at once.
Once you can keep liquids down and feel even a flicker of appetite, you can move to solid food. The classic BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) is a reasonable starting point for the first day or two, but you don’t need to limit yourself to just those four foods. Oatmeal, plain crackers, unsweetened dry cereal, and boiled potatoes are all gentle on the stomach and equally safe to try.
Foods That Help You Recover Faster
Sticking with nothing but white rice and toast for days can actually slow your recovery. Your body needs protein and micronutrients to repair your gut lining, so the sooner you can expand your diet, the better. Once your stomach has settled, good next steps include:
- Lean proteins: skinless chicken or turkey, fish, eggs
- Cooked vegetables: butternut squash, pumpkin, carrots, sweet potatoes without skin
- Soft fruits: bananas, avocado
- Simple starches: boiled potatoes, plain pasta, oatmeal
These foods are all bland enough to avoid triggering nausea but nutritionally complete enough to give your body what it needs. You don’t have to wait for diarrhea to completely stop before eating your normal diet. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases advises that both adults and children can return to their usual foods as soon as appetite returns, even with ongoing loose stools.
Ginger for Nausea
If nausea is your main barrier to eating, ginger can help. Clinical trials have tested ginger for various types of nausea at doses ranging from 250 mg to 1 g per day, split into three or four smaller doses. Interestingly, higher doses (around 2 g) didn’t outperform 1 g, so more isn’t necessarily better. You can get this from ginger tea, ginger chews, or capsules. A thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger steeped in hot water for 10 minutes makes a simple tea that many people find soothing.
What to Avoid Until You’re Better
Some foods and drinks actively make symptoms worse. Fatty and fried foods take much longer to break down in the stomach, slowing digestion and keeping your stomach full longer than it should be. Spicy foods and dairy can both increase stomach acid production. If you have any degree of lactose intolerance (even mild), a stomach bug can temporarily worsen it because the infection damages the cells in your gut that produce the enzyme needed to digest milk sugar. This means even people who normally handle dairy fine may find it triggers cramping and diarrhea during and shortly after a stomach bug.
Caffeine and carbonated drinks are a particularly bad combination. The carbonation inflates your stomach and raises internal pressure, while caffeine relaxes the valve between your stomach and esophagus. Together, they make acid reflux much more likely on top of the nausea you’re already dealing with. Alcohol irritates the stomach lining directly and also acts as a diuretic, pulling more water out of your body when you’re already losing too much.
What About Probiotics?
You’ll see probiotics recommended everywhere for stomach bugs, but the evidence is weaker than most people assume. In children, studies have found that probiotics can shorten the duration of acute diarrhea by roughly 14 to 26 percent. In adults, however, a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials found no significant protective effect. The pooled data showed probiotics performed essentially the same as placebo. That doesn’t mean they’re harmful, and they may help rebuild gut bacteria after your illness. But they’re unlikely to shorten the bug itself if you’re an adult.
Signs of Dehydration to Watch For
The real danger with a stomach bug isn’t the bug itself. It’s the fluid loss. Watch for excessive thirst, a dry mouth, dark yellow urine or very little urine output, and dizziness or lightheadedness when you stand. These are signs your body is losing more fluid than you’re replacing. Infants, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems are most vulnerable. For babies specifically, no wet diaper in six hours, a dry mouth, crying without tears, or unusual sleepiness are red flags that need immediate medical attention.
Preventing Reinfection at Home
Norovirus, the most common cause of stomach bugs, is remarkably resilient. It can survive on hard surfaces like countertops and plastic for more than two weeks, and on soft surfaces like carpet or fabric for up to a week. If someone in your household is sick, cleaning shared surfaces with a bleach-based solution (not just antibacterial wipes, which don’t kill norovirus effectively) is important to keep the bug from cycling through your entire family. Wash your hands thoroughly before preparing any food, and don’t share utensils or towels with the sick person until they’ve been symptom-free for at least 48 hours.