When your stomach hurts, the right foods can ease the discomfort while the wrong ones can make it significantly worse. The best choices are bland, low-fat, low-acid foods that are easy to digest: plain rice, bananas, toast, broth-based soups, and cooked vegetables. What matters most in the first few hours is keeping things simple and staying hydrated.
Start With Bland, Easy-to-Digest Foods
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. These foods are gentle on an irritated stomach because they’re low in fat, low in fiber, and unlikely to trigger further cramping or nausea. They’re a reasonable starting point when you’re at your worst, but they shouldn’t be your entire diet for more than a day or two. The BRAT diet lacks calcium, vitamin B12, protein, and fiber, so sticking with it too long can actually slow your recovery. The American Academy of Pediatrics no longer recommends it as a strict plan for children for this reason.
Instead of limiting yourself to just those four foods, think of them as a foundation you can build on. Once you can tolerate bland starches, try adding plain crackers, oatmeal, boiled potatoes, or skinless chicken breast. The goal is to eat small amounts frequently rather than sitting down to a full meal, which puts less pressure on your digestive system at any one time.
Cooked Vegetables Over Raw
Raw vegetables are harder on a sore stomach. Cooking breaks down insoluble fiber, the type that can be particularly challenging to digest when your gut is already irritated. Steamed carrots, zucchini, or green beans are much gentler than a raw salad. If you have any kind of ongoing digestive condition, this difference becomes even more pronounced. Keep preparations simple: no butter, no heavy sauces, no deep frying.
Foods That Help With Acid-Related Pain
If your stomach pain feels like burning or sits high in your abdomen, excess acid may be part of the problem. Alkaline foods can help offset that acidity. Bananas, melons (especially watermelon and cantaloupe), cauliflower, fennel, and nuts all fall on the alkaline end of the pH scale.
Foods with high water content also help by diluting stomach acid. Cucumber, celery, lettuce, watermelon, broth-based soups, and herbal teas all work well here. Ginger is particularly useful because it’s naturally alkaline and has anti-inflammatory properties that ease irritation in the digestive tract. You can steep fresh ginger slices in hot water or look for ginger tea. Peppermint tea is another option: it helps relax the muscles in your stomach, which can reduce cramping and discomfort.
One note on peppermint: if your pain is related to acid reflux or heartburn, peppermint can relax the valve between your esophagus and stomach, potentially making reflux worse. In that case, stick with ginger.
What to Drink When You Can’t Eat
If your stomach pain comes with vomiting or diarrhea, hydration becomes more important than food. Water alone isn’t ideal because you’re losing electrolytes along with fluid. Oral rehydration solutions, available at most pharmacies and grocery stores, contain a balanced ratio of sodium and glucose that helps your gut absorb water more efficiently. The glucose and sodium work together through a specific transport mechanism in your intestinal lining, so the combination is absorbed better than either one alone.
If you don’t have a rehydration solution on hand, clear broth is a solid alternative because it provides sodium and some minerals. Diluted coconut water works too. Avoid fruit juices and sodas. Their high sugar content can actually pull more water into your intestines and make diarrhea worse. Sip slowly rather than gulping. Small, frequent sips are far easier on an upset stomach than drinking a full glass at once.
Foods and Drinks to Avoid
Some foods will reliably make stomach pain worse, regardless of the cause:
- Fried and fatty foods. When fat isn’t fully absorbed in the upper digestive tract, it reaches the colon and gets broken down into fatty acids, which trigger the colon to secrete fluid. This means more cramping and looser stools.
- High-sugar foods and drinks. Sugar stimulates your gut to release water and electrolytes, loosening bowel movements. Fructose is one of the biggest offenders. It’s naturally high in peaches, pears, cherries, and apples. More than 40 to 80 grams of fructose per day is enough to cause diarrhea in many people.
- Artificial sweeteners. Sorbitol, mannitol, and xylitol, found in sugar-free gum, candy, and some medications, are poorly absorbed and can cause gas, bloating, and diarrhea.
- Dairy. Milk, cheese, and ice cream are harder to digest when your gut is inflamed, especially if you have any degree of lactose sensitivity that might not bother you on a normal day.
- Caffeine and alcohol. Both increase acid production and can irritate the stomach lining.
- Spicy foods. Capsaicin stimulates the digestive tract and can intensify pain and cramping.
It’s worth noting that applesauce, despite being a BRAT diet staple, is relatively high in fructose. If diarrhea is your main symptom, you may want to go easy on it and lean more on rice or plain toast instead.
How to Ease Back Into Normal Eating
Most stomach pain from common causes like a stomach bug, mild food poisoning, or stress resolves within 24 to 72 hours. During that window, a reasonable progression looks like this: start with clear liquids and broth for the first several hours, move to bland solids like crackers, rice, or toast once you can keep liquids down, then gradually reintroduce lean proteins and cooked vegetables over the next day or two. Don’t rush it. If a food makes the pain worse, pull back to what was working.
Pay attention to portion size as you recover. Your stomach has been through stress, and a large meal can trigger a relapse of nausea or cramping even after you’re feeling better. Eating five or six small portions throughout the day is gentler than three full meals.
When Food Choices Aren’t Enough
Dietary changes help with routine stomach upset, but certain patterns of pain signal something that needs medical attention. Pain that starts near your belly button and moves to your lower right side, especially if it worsens over hours and comes with fever or vomiting, can indicate appendicitis. Upper abdominal pain that gets worse after eating and comes with nausea, fever, or a rapid pulse may point to a pancreas problem.
More generally, if your pain is severe enough to interfere with normal functioning, you can’t keep any liquids down, you haven’t been able to have a bowel movement and are in significant pain, or the pain resembles something you’ve experienced before but feels different or more intense this time, those are reasons to seek care rather than trying to manage things with diet alone.