When your stomach is upset, the best things to eat are bland, low-fat foods that require minimal digestion: plain crackers, white toast, bananas, applesauce, white rice, and brothy soups. These foods provide calories without irritating your stomach further. But the path back to normal eating depends on where you are in the process, whether you’re actively nauseous, recovering from vomiting, or just dealing with general queasiness.
If You’ve Been Vomiting, Start Slow
Right after throwing up, don’t eat or drink anything for a few hours. Your stomach needs a brief reset. When you’re ready, start by sucking on ice chips or taking small sips of water every 15 minutes. The goal is to prove your stomach can hold down fluid before you add anything else.
Once water stays down, move to clear liquids: clear broth, watered-down electrolyte drinks, ice pops, or plain gelatin. Keep this up for a few hours. When your appetite starts returning, transition to small amounts of bland solid food like applesauce, bananas, crackers, plain oatmeal, or dry toast. Eat slowly and in smaller portions than usual. You can eat more frequently throughout the day to compensate.
The Best Foods for a Sensitive Stomach
The classic BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) has been the go-to recommendation for decades, but it’s nutritionally limited. You can and should eat beyond those four foods, as long as everything stays bland, low in fat, and easy to digest.
Good options include:
- Starches: white rice, plain oatmeal, boiled potatoes, saltine crackers, unsweetened dry cereal, white pasta, plain bagels, pancakes made with refined flour
- Fruits: bananas, applesauce
- Soups: clear brothy soups (chicken broth, vegetable broth)
Once your stomach starts settling, you can add foods with more nutritional value. Cooked carrots, butternut squash, pumpkin, sweet potatoes without skin, and avocado are all easy to digest while offering vitamins you need to recover. For protein, try skinless chicken or turkey, fish, eggs, or tofu. These give your body fuel to bounce back without overtaxing your digestive system.
What to Avoid Until You Feel Better
Fat is the main thing to limit. It naturally slows stomach emptying, which means food sits in your stomach longer and can make nausea, bloating, and discomfort worse. Skip fried foods, greasy meals, and high-fat dairy like whole milk, cream, ice cream, regular cheese, and sour cream. If you want dairy, use fat-free or low-fat versions instead.
Also steer clear of:
- Spicy foods, which can irritate an already inflamed stomach lining
- Raw vegetables and high-fiber foods, which are harder to break down
- Caffeine and alcohol, both of which can increase stomach acid and worsen dehydration
- Acidic foods like citrus fruits and tomato-based sauces
- Carbonated drinks, which can cause bloating and gas
Ginger and Peppermint for Nausea
Ginger is one of the most studied natural remedies for nausea. Clinical trials have used doses of 250 mg of powdered ginger four times a day (about 1,000 mg total), and found it effective for reducing nausea. You can get this through ginger capsules, ginger tea, or ginger syrup mixed into water. Ginger ale is a popular choice, but most commercial brands contain very little actual ginger, so tea or supplements are more reliable.
Peppermint works through a different mechanism. It relaxes the smooth muscle in your digestive tract by reducing calcium flow into muscle cells, which eases cramping and spasms. Peppermint tea is the gentlest option. One caveat: if your upset stomach comes with acid reflux or heartburn, peppermint can relax the valve between your esophagus and stomach, potentially making reflux worse.
Probiotics Can Shorten Diarrhea
If your upset stomach involves diarrhea, probiotics may help you recover faster. A large meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials found that certain probiotic strains shortened the duration of acute diarrhea by roughly a full day. The yeast strain Saccharomyces boulardii showed the strongest effect, cutting diarrhea duration by about 1.25 days on average. Lactobacillus reuteri reduced it by about 0.84 days.
You can find these in supplement form or in fermented foods like yogurt (stick with plain, low-fat varieties). Probiotics aren’t a quick fix for nausea or cramping, but if loose stools are your main symptom, they’re worth adding.
Hydration Matters More Than Food
When your stomach is upset, staying hydrated is more important than eating. Vomiting and diarrhea both drain fluids and electrolytes quickly. Water is fine for mild cases, but if you’ve been vomiting or had diarrhea for several hours, an electrolyte drink helps replace lost sodium and potassium. Sip slowly rather than gulping. Large volumes of liquid at once can trigger more nausea.
Clear broth does double duty here, providing both fluid and a small amount of sodium. Coconut water is another option that naturally contains electrolytes.
Signs That Need Medical Attention
Most upset stomachs resolve within 24 to 48 hours. But certain symptoms point to something more serious. Seek emergency care if your abdominal pain is sudden, severe, or doesn’t ease within 30 minutes. Continuous severe pain paired with nonstop vomiting can indicate a life-threatening condition.
Watch for symptoms of appendicitis: severe pain that often settles in the lower right abdomen, loss of appetite, vomiting, and fever. Pancreatitis typically presents as pain in the middle upper abdomen that worsens after eating, along with nausea, a swollen tender abdomen, and a rapid pulse. Bloody vomit, bloody stool, or signs of dehydration (dark urine, dizziness, dry mouth) also warrant a call to your doctor rather than waiting it out at home.