If you have inflammatory bowel disease, what you eat depends largely on whether you’re in a flare or in remission. During active inflammation, the goal is reducing irritation to your gut with simpler, easier-to-digest foods. In remission, the priority shifts to a varied, nutrient-rich diet that helps keep inflammation low and your body well-nourished. There’s no single “IBD diet” that works for everyone, but the evidence points to clear principles worth following.
The Baseline: Eat Like Everyone Else (When You Can)
This might sound surprising, but the latest European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation consensus, published in 2025, recommends that people with IBD follow general healthy eating guidelines unless a healthcare professional has prescribed a specific dietary intervention. That means fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats. The old advice to permanently restrict fiber or stick to bland foods has largely been replaced by a more nuanced approach: adjust your diet based on your current disease activity, not a blanket set of restrictions.
One consistent finding is that people with IBD tend to eat far less fiber than they should. Studies show intake typically falls between 9 and 23 grams per day, well below the recommended 25 to 30 grams. This gap matters because certain types of fiber feed beneficial gut bacteria that produce compounds protective against inflammation. The key is knowing which fiber to reach for and when.
What to Eat During a Flare
When your disease is active, your gut lining is inflamed and more sensitive to mechanical irritation. A low-residue diet reduces the physical bulk passing through your intestines, giving inflamed tissue less to contend with. This doesn’t mean eating nothing of value. It means choosing softer, more refined versions of foods you’d normally eat.
Safe staples during a flare include white rice, white bread, refined pasta, and cooked potatoes without the skin. For grains, think cream of wheat, grits, corn flakes, or puffed rice cereal. Fruits should be canned, cooked, or very ripe: bananas and soft melon are reliable choices, along with strained fruit juice. Vegetables are fine as long as they’re well-cooked or canned, and seedless. Eggs and tender, well-cooked meats like ground beef, poultry, fish, and pork are all good protein sources. Dairy products like yogurt, cheese, and milk are generally included unless you have a separate lactose intolerance.
For snacks and extras, plain crackers, pretzels, gelatin, pudding, and popsicles are all low-residue options. Butter, oils, and small amounts of honey or clear jelly are fine. Coffee, tea, and broth-based soups made with these ingredients round things out.
Why Protein Matters More During Flares
Active inflammation increases your body’s protein needs significantly. European nutrition guidelines recommend 1.2 to 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day during active disease. For a 70-kilogram (154-pound) person, that’s roughly 84 to 105 grams daily. In remission, the target drops to the standard 0.8 to 1.0 grams per kilogram. Falling short on protein during a flare can slow healing and contribute to muscle loss, so prioritizing eggs, fish, poultry, and dairy at every meal is worth the effort.
Staying Hydrated During Diarrhea
Frequent diarrhea strips your body of water and electrolytes faster than plain water can replace them. A simple oral rehydration solution you can make at home calls for 4 cups of water, half a teaspoon of table salt, and 2 tablespoons of sugar. The sugar isn’t just for taste; it helps your intestines absorb the sodium and water more efficiently.
If plain salt water doesn’t appeal to you, alternatives include mixing half a teaspoon of salt into 4 cups of a low-sugar sports drink, or combining three-quarters cup of cranberry juice with three and a quarter cups of water and half a teaspoon of salt. A cereal-based version using half a cup of cooked baby rice cereal, 2 cups of water, and a quarter teaspoon of salt works well too, especially if you need the calories.
What to Eat in Remission
Once your symptoms settle, the evidence strongly favors a Mediterranean-style eating pattern. A randomized controlled trial in people with ulcerative colitis in remission found that after 12 weeks, only 20% of those following a Mediterranean diet showed elevated intestinal inflammation markers, compared to 75% of those eating their usual diet. The Mediterranean group also produced significantly more short-chain fatty acids, compounds made by gut bacteria that help maintain the intestinal lining and regulate immune responses. The researchers concluded that a Mediterranean pattern is sustainable enough to serve as a long-term maintenance diet for UC.
In practice, this means building meals around vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, olive oil, nuts, fish, and moderate amounts of poultry. Red meat and processed foods take a back seat. This pattern naturally delivers the fiber, healthy fats, and variety your gut microbiome needs to stay balanced.
Soluble vs. Insoluble Fiber
Not all fiber behaves the same way in your gut, and understanding the difference helps you make better choices. Soluble fiber, found in oats, bananas, cooked carrots, and peeled apples, dissolves in water to form a gel. It slows transit through your colon and is almost entirely fermented by gut bacteria into those beneficial short-chain fatty acids.
Insoluble fiber, found in whole wheat, raw vegetables, and the skins and seeds of fruits, doesn’t dissolve. It adds bulk to stool and can mechanically irritate an inflamed gut lining. This is why whole-grain bread and raw vegetables tend to cause problems during flares but are often tolerated fine in remission. When reintroducing fiber after a flare, start with soluble sources and add insoluble fiber gradually.
Common Trigger Foods
Survey data from IBD patients consistently identifies certain foods as symptom triggers. The most frequently reported culprits are deep-fried foods (reported by 60% of respondents), full-grain and wholemeal bread (around 55%), alcohol (49%), cabbage (48%), and chili sauce (48%). Ice cream, wheat-based products, muesli, onion, and whole cow’s milk also rank high, each triggering symptoms in roughly 45 to 47% of people surveyed.
The pattern is telling: high-fat cooking methods, raw or gas-producing vegetables, spicy foods, and high-fiber grains are the main categories. But triggers are highly individual. A food that flares one person may be perfectly fine for another. Keeping a simple food diary for two to three weeks can help you identify your own patterns rather than unnecessarily eliminating foods that don’t actually bother you.
Fermented Foods
Yogurt, kefir, and other fermented foods have drawn interest as a way to support gut bacteria in IBD. A systematic review of randomized trials found that fermented food interventions were almost universally well-tolerated, with minimal side effects. Four out of six studies showed clinically better outcomes in the groups consuming fermented foods, and one trial demonstrated a significant reduction in UC flare-ups in the fermented food group.
The evidence is promising but still limited, and most of the trials were small. Probiotic yogurt and kefir have the strongest (though still modest) track record. If you tolerate dairy, incorporating plain yogurt or kefir into your remission diet is a reasonable choice. If dairy is a trigger for you, small amounts of fermented options like sauerkraut or kimchi may be worth trying, though direct trial data on those specific foods in IBD is scarce.
Omega-3 and Omega-6 Fats
The type of fat you eat appears to influence IBD risk and possibly disease activity. Higher intake of omega-3 fatty acids, found in fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, and sardines, is associated with lower risk of both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. High intake of omega-6 fatty acids, concentrated in corn oil, soybean oil, and many processed foods, is linked to higher UC risk. A higher ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats, along with more olive oil (rich in omega-9 fats), is associated with lower UC risk.
Practically, this means cooking with olive oil instead of vegetable oils, eating fatty fish two to three times per week, and limiting fried and heavily processed foods. This aligns neatly with the Mediterranean pattern that already shows benefits for maintaining remission.