Bland, low-fiber, starchy foods are your best bet for slowing diarrhea and firming up stools. Bananas, white rice, boiled potatoes, oatmeal, and plain crackers are all easy to digest and unlikely to irritate your gut further. But you don’t need to limit yourself to just a handful of foods. The key is choosing options that are gentle on your digestive system while still giving your body the nutrients and fluids it needs to recover.
The BRAT Diet: A Starting Point, Not a Rule
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. It’s been recommended for decades, but there’s actually no clinical research comparing it to other approaches. It’s fine for the first day or two of acute diarrhea from stomach flu, food poisoning, or traveler’s diarrhea, but sticking to only those four foods for longer than that leaves you short on protein and key nutrients you need to heal.
A better approach is to think of BRAT as a starting framework, then expand to other bland, easy-to-digest foods as soon as you can tolerate them. There’s no benefit to waiting. A Cochrane review found that reintroducing food early, even within 12 hours of starting rehydration, does not increase the risk of worsening diarrhea, vomiting, or other complications.
Best Foods to Eat During Diarrhea
The foods that help most share a few qualities: they’re low in fat, low in insoluble fiber, and easy for your gut to break down. Here are your strongest options:
- Bananas: Rich in potassium, which you lose quickly during diarrhea. They also contain pectin, a type of soluble fiber that absorbs water in your intestines and adds bulk to stool.
- White rice and oatmeal: Both are starchy and binding. Oatmeal is particularly high in soluble fiber, which soaks up excess water in the bowel.
- Boiled or baked potatoes: Easy to digest and a good source of potassium. Skip the butter and sour cream.
- Cooked carrots: Soft, mild, and well-tolerated. Cooking breaks down the tough fiber, making them gentler than raw vegetables.
- Plain crackers and dry cereal: Unsweetened varieties give you simple carbohydrates without triggering your gut.
- Brothy soups: Chicken broth replaces both fluid and sodium at the same time. It’s one of the most practical recovery foods.
- Applesauce: Cooked apples are easier to digest than raw ones. The pectin in applesauce helps firm loose stools.
Adding Protein as You Improve
Once your stomach starts to settle, typically after the first 24 hours, you can add foods with more nutritional substance. Skinless chicken or turkey, fish, and eggs are all bland enough to be well-tolerated while providing the protein your body needs for recovery. Avocado, cooked sweet potatoes without the skin, and soft squash like butternut or pumpkin are also good choices at this stage.
You don’t need to follow a rigid timeline. If you feel up to eating a piece of baked chicken on day one, go for it. The goal is to eat what you can keep down and gradually widen your diet as symptoms improve.
How Soluble Fiber Firms Up Stool
Not all fiber is helpful during diarrhea. Insoluble fiber, the kind found in raw vegetables, whole wheat, and bran, speeds things through your gut and can make loose stools worse. Soluble fiber does the opposite. It dissolves in water and forms a gel-like substance that absorbs excess fluid in your intestines, adding bulk and structure to watery stool.
Good sources of soluble fiber include oats, bananas, applesauce, cooked carrots, avocados, and barley. These are worth prioritizing over other bland foods because they actively work to slow things down rather than just avoiding irritation.
Yogurt and Fermented Foods
While most dairy products can worsen diarrhea (more on that below), yogurt is an exception. The fermentation process breaks down lactose, the milk sugar that causes digestive trouble for many people. Plain Greek yogurt with live active cultures is your best option. Flavored yogurts tend to have too much added sugar, which can pull water into your intestines and make diarrhea worse.
Kefir, fresh sauerkraut, and kimchi also contain beneficial bacteria that support gut recovery. If you try sauerkraut, look for the refrigerated kind with live cultures rather than the shelf-stable canned version, which has been heat-treated and contains far fewer beneficial organisms. Even a couple of tablespoons a day can help repopulate your gut with healthy bacteria, especially after a bout of stomach flu or food poisoning.
Foods and Drinks That Make Diarrhea Worse
What you avoid matters just as much as what you eat. Several common foods and ingredients actively trigger or worsen loose stools:
Caffeine speeds up your digestive system. Coffee is the obvious culprit, but tea, chocolate, sodas, and anything flavored with coffee or chocolate can have the same effect.
Fatty and fried foods are poorly absorbed when your gut is already irritated. Undigested fats reach your colon, where they’re broken down into fatty acids that cause your colon to secrete fluid, directly triggering more diarrhea.
Dairy products like milk, ice cream, and soft cheese contain lactose. Even people who normally digest dairy fine can have temporary lactose intolerance during a bout of diarrhea because the infection damages the cells that produce the enzyme needed to break it down.
Excess sugar and artificial sweeteners are major offenders. Sugars stimulate your gut to release water and electrolytes, loosening bowel movements. Fructose is especially problematic. Consuming more than 40 to 80 grams per day, an amount easily reached through fruit juice, soda, or sweetened applesauce, can cause diarrhea on its own. Artificial sweeteners like sorbitol, mannitol, and xylitol, commonly found in sugar-free gum and candy, have a similar effect.
High-FODMAP foods including onions, garlic, beans, lentils, and wheat are poorly digested by many people and can worsen symptoms. These are worth avoiding during active diarrhea even if they don’t normally bother you.
Staying Hydrated Is Just as Important
Diarrhea pulls water and electrolytes out of your body fast, and dehydration is the most immediate risk, especially in children and older adults. Water alone doesn’t replace the sodium and potassium you’re losing. Broth-based soups are one of the easiest ways to get both fluid and electrolytes at the same time.
You can also make a simple rehydration drink at home: mix 4 cups of water with half a teaspoon of table salt and 2 tablespoons of sugar. This ratio, developed from oral rehydration guidelines, helps your intestines absorb water more efficiently than plain water alone. Sip it throughout the day rather than drinking large amounts at once.
Chicken broth works as another rehydration option. You can dissolve one dry bouillon cube in 4 cups of water and stir in 2 tablespoons of sugar, or mix 2 cups of regular (not low-sodium) liquid broth with 2 cups of water and 2 tablespoons of sugar. The sodium content in the broth is actually a benefit here, not something to avoid.
Getting Back to Normal Eating
Most cases of acute diarrhea from viral infections or food poisoning resolve within two to three days. You can start reintroducing your regular diet as soon as symptoms begin to ease. There’s no need to wait a set number of hours or follow a strict sequence. Add foods back one or two at a time so you can identify anything that triggers a setback.
The last foods to bring back should be the ones most likely to cause trouble: dairy, fatty foods, raw vegetables, high-fiber grains, caffeine, and alcohol. If diarrhea persists beyond a few days, or if you notice that specific foods consistently trigger it, that pattern is worth paying attention to, as ongoing food-related diarrhea can point to lactose intolerance, fructose sensitivity, or gluten-related issues that benefit from targeted dietary changes.