Is Rice Pudding Good for Diarrhea?

Rice pudding is a mixed bag when you have diarrhea. The rice itself is one of the most studied and widely recommended foods for managing loose stools, but traditional rice pudding also contains milk, sugar, and sometimes butter or cream, all of which can aggravate an already irritated gut. Whether rice pudding helps or hurts depends on how it is made, what your body is doing with lactose at that moment, and how much sweetener is involved.

Why Plain Rice Has Such a Good Reputation

Rice has been part of diarrhea management for decades, and not just as folk wisdom. Researchers have tested rice-based solutions against standard glucose-based oral rehydration formulas and found meaningful benefits. In one trial involving infants, a rice-based electrolyte solution led to lower fecal output in the first six hours of treatment and greater fluid and potassium absorption over 48 hours compared to a standard glucose formula.¹ Another trial using a rice-derived glucose polymer oral rehydration solution found that stool volumes dropped significantly in children with severe dehydration, and the amount of rehydration fluid they needed also went down.²

What makes rice helpful comes down to its starch. White rice is low in fiber, which matters because a low-fiber approach is considered part of standard dietary management during acute bowel flare-ups, with clinical guidance suggesting keeping fiber below about 10 grams per day.³ White rice fits easily within that limit. Its starch is also highly digestible, so it does not sit in the gut fermenting and pulling water into the intestine. That combination of low residue, easy digestibility, and the ability to help the gut absorb fluid is why rice appears on virtually every “what to eat during diarrhea” list.

The Milk Problem

Traditional rice pudding calls for whole milk or sometimes cream, and this is where things get complicated. During a bout of acute diarrhea, especially one caused by an infection, the lining of your small intestine can temporarily lose its ability to produce lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose in milk. A Cochrane review on the subject explains that this temporary lactase shortage means undigested lactose sits in the gut, and it can worsen or prolong the diarrhea.⁴

This does not mean every person with diarrhea needs to avoid all dairy. European pediatric guidelines state that regular feeding should continue with no dietary changes, including milk, for most children with acute gastroenteritis.⁵ The reasoning is that for most kids, the benefit of getting calories and nutrients outweighs the small risk that lactose will make things worse. But if you are someone who already has marginal lactose tolerance, or if your diarrhea is severe and watery, a big bowl of milk-based pudding may push things in the wrong direction. Your gut is already inflamed; adding a sugar it cannot fully break down right now gives bacteria more to ferment, which generates gas and pulls more water into the bowel.

Sugar, Sweetness, and Osmotic Effects

The other major ingredient in classic rice pudding is sugar, and sometimes a lot of it. Many recipes call for several tablespoons per batch, plus raisins, condensed milk, or honey. Sugar in the gut is osmotically active, meaning it draws water from surrounding tissues into the intestinal space. In a healthy gut, this is no big deal because the sugar gets absorbed quickly. In an inflamed or damaged gut, absorption slows and excess sugar stays in the lumen, actively making stools more watery.

This is the same principle behind why doctors warn against giving fruit juice to children with diarrhea. High concentrations of simple sugars can turn a mild case into a prolonged one. A lightly sweetened rice pudding is very different from one drenched in condensed milk, and that distinction matters more than people tend to realize when they reach for comfort food during an illness.

What About Fat Content

Rice pudding made with whole milk, butter, or cream also delivers a fair amount of fat per serving. Fat slows gastric emptying, which in some situations can be helpful (it means nutrients trickle into the small intestine gradually). But during diarrhea, particularly if the gut lining is compromised, fat can be harder to digest and may contribute to greasy, loose stools. This does not mean you need a zero-fat diet during a stomach bug, but it does mean a rich, custard-style rice pudding with heavy cream is probably not your best choice. A version made with low-fat or skim milk sits better, or you can skip dairy altogether.

Rice Porridge Versus Rice Pudding

There is a long tradition across Asia of using plain rice porridge, often called congee or jook, as the go-to food when someone is sick. Interviews with Chinese families in Hong Kong documented that food selection and preparation was the most common method families used to manage illness, guided by traditional concepts of maintaining body balance.⁶ Congee is essentially rice cooked in a large volume of water until the grains break down into a smooth, starchy liquid. It contains no milk, no sugar, and minimal fat. The result is a food that delivers easily digestible calories and a substantial amount of water, which is exactly what a dehydrated gut needs.

The difference between congee and Western-style rice pudding is stark. Congee is closer to a rice-based rehydration fluid in food form, whereas rice pudding is a dessert. If you are trying to harness the gut-friendly properties of rice during diarrhea, congee is the more direct route. You can season it with a pinch of salt (which also aids electrolyte replacement) and a small amount of ginger. It is bland by design, which is the point.

Modifying Rice Pudding to Work Better

If congee does not appeal to you and you genuinely want rice pudding, there are ways to shift the recipe closer to something your gut can handle during an episode of diarrhea.

Swap the milk: Use lactose-free milk if you want to keep the creamy texture without risking the lactose issue. Plant-based milks like oat or almond milk work too, but check the ingredients. Some contain carrageenan as a thickener, and research has raised concerns about carrageenan’s effects on the intestinal lining, including disruption of the mucous barrier and activation of inflammatory pathways in the gut.⁷ That is probably not what you want during active diarrhea. Look for carrageenan-free versions.
Cut the sugar: Use the minimum amount of sweetener you can tolerate, or none at all. A tiny amount of honey or maple syrup is better than condensed milk or large scoops of white sugar. Skip raisins and other dried fruit, which are high in both sugar and fiber.
Use white rice: Brown rice has a bran layer that slows gastric emptying compared to white rice, and it contains more fiber.⁸ During diarrhea, you want easy, fast digestion. White rice is the better choice here.
Skip the butter: Keep the fat content low. If you want richness, a small amount of coconut milk is an option, but do not go overboard.

The modified version ends up being something between a Western rice pudding and an Asian congee: soft white rice cooked in lactose-free milk or diluted plant milk, with minimal sweetener and no added fat. It is not going to win any dessert competitions, but it is a reasonable comfort food that delivers calories without most of the ingredients that can make diarrhea worse.

The Importance of Eating Early

One thing that research consistently supports is that you should not stop eating during diarrhea. Older advice to “rest the gut” by fasting has been largely abandoned. A study on early versus late refeeding in infants with acute diarrhea found that early refeeding had a favorable effect on body weight, while delayed feeding was associated with more frequent weight stalling or loss.⁹ European pediatric guidelines echo this, recommending that normal feeding continue without dietary restrictions during acute gastroenteritis.⁵

So even an imperfect food is usually better than no food, especially if the diarrhea has lasted more than a few hours. If rice pudding is the only thing you can stomach, eating it is better than eating nothing. Just understand that a modified, lower-sugar, lower-dairy version will likely sit better than the full-fat, sweetened original.

Food Safety With Cooked Rice

This is a point that gets overlooked when people make rice pudding during illness: cooked rice is a well-known vehicle for Bacillus cereus, a food-poisoning bacterium whose spores survive cooking temperatures and can multiply rapidly if the rice sits at room temperature. B. cereus produces toxins that cause either vomiting or diarrhea, depending on the strain, which is the last thing you need when you are already dealing with a gut problem.¹⁰

Research examining cooked and refrigerated rice samples found that a quarter of them tested positive for B. cereus spores, and some samples showed increased bacterial counts even after cooking and refrigeration, suggesting the spores had germinated and proliferated under favorable conditions.¹¹ The practical takeaway: if you are making rice pudding while sick, cook it fresh, eat it promptly, and refrigerate leftovers within an hour. Do not leave a pot of rice pudding sitting on the counter for half a day, especially if the reason you are eating it is that your gut is already struggling.

Cooled Rice and Resistant Starch

You may have heard that cooling and reheating rice creates “resistant starch,” which feeds beneficial gut bacteria and can have positive effects on digestion. This is true in principle. Cooling cooked white rice does increase its resistant starch content, roughly doubling it compared to freshly cooked rice in one study that tested different cooling protocols.¹² Resistant starch passes through the small intestine undigested and is fermented by bacteria in the colon, producing short-chain fatty acids that nourish the gut lining.

However, during active diarrhea, this is not necessarily helpful. Fermentation in the colon generates gas, and your inflamed gut may not handle the extra bacterial activity well. Resistant starch is generally considered beneficial for long-term gut health and recovery after illness, not as a tool during the acute phase. Freshly cooked, warm rice pudding is a better bet than a cold, leftover version when your stools are still loose. Save the cooled-and-reheated approach for when your digestion has normalized and you want to support your microbiome’s recovery.

Who Should Be More Careful

Most of the clinical research on rice-based diets during diarrhea has focused on children, particularly infants in low-resource settings dealing with acute watery diarrhea from infections. Adults with a garden-variety stomach bug can generally follow the same principles, but a few groups should be more cautious about using rice pudding as a recovery food.

People with known lactose intolerance already lack sufficient lactase, and the temporary reduction caused by gut inflammation stacks on top of their baseline deficit. For them, any milk-based pudding is almost certainly going to make things worse. People with irritable bowel syndrome may also react poorly to the combination of dairy, sugar, and fat, even in amounts that a healthy gut would handle without issue. And anyone whose diarrhea has lasted more than a couple of days, contains blood, or is accompanied by high fever should be talking to a doctor rather than self-treating with food choices. Persistent diarrhea can signal something beyond a simple infection, and dietary management alone is not a substitute for medical evaluation when warning signs are present.

What About the BRAT Diet

Rice pudding sometimes gets lumped into discussions of the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast), which was once the standard recommendation for diarrhea in children. The BRAT diet has fallen out of favor with pediatric gastroenterologists because it is nutritionally inadequate. It provides very few calories, almost no protein, and limited vitamins. Current guidelines, as mentioned earlier, recommend continuing a normal, age-appropriate diet rather than restricting to a handful of bland foods.

That said, the individual components of the BRAT diet are still fine to eat during diarrhea. The issue is with using them as the exclusive diet for days on end. A bowl of rice, or even a modified rice pudding, alongside other tolerated foods is perfectly reasonable. The shift in medical thinking has been away from “starve the gut” and toward “feed the person,” with the understanding that the gut recovers faster when it has nutrients to work with.

1
New England Journal of Medicine. Rice-based oral electrolyte solutions for the management of infantile diarrhea
2
Acta Paediatrica. High-calorie, rice-derived, short-chain, glucose polymer-based oral rehydration solution in acute watery diarrhea
3
PubMed Central. Low-residue and low-fiber diets in gastrointestinal disease management
4
PubMed Central. Lactose avoidance for young children with acute diarrhoea
5
PubMed. European Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition/European Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases evidence-based guidelines for the management of acute gastroenteritis in children in Europe: update 2014
6
Social Science & Medicine. The use of food to treat and prevent disease in chinese culture
7
PubMed Central. Carrageenan as a Potential Factor of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases
8
PubMed. Brown rice compared to white rice slows gastric emptying in humans
9
Acta Paediatrica. Early re-feeding in the management of acute diarrhoea in infants of 0-1 year of age
10
PubMed Central. Bacillus cereus food poisoning: international and Indian perspective
11
Biological Sciences – PJSIR. Detection of Food Poisoning (Bacillus cereus) Pathogen in Cooked and Refrigerated Rice Samples
12
PubMed. Effect of cooling of cooked white rice on resistant starch content and glycemic response