When your stomach hurts, the best foods are bland, low-fat, and easy to digest: plain rice, bananas, toast, broth, and applesauce. These foods require minimal effort from your digestive system, which lets your stomach settle instead of working overtime. What you avoid matters just as much as what you eat, and how quickly you return to normal meals depends on what’s causing the pain.
Why Bland Foods Help
Your stomach has to physically churn and break down everything you eat before passing it along. Fat slows that process significantly, keeping food sitting in your stomach longer. Fiber does the same thing. When your stomach is already irritated, that extra time and effort translates directly into more discomfort, cramping, or nausea.
Bland, low-fiber, low-fat foods move through faster and produce less stomach acid during digestion. That’s the logic behind every “upset stomach” food list you’ve ever seen: you’re giving your gut the least possible work to do while still getting some calories in.
The Best Foods for a Stomach Ache
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. These four foods are fine starting points, but they’re not the whole picture. Doctors no longer recommend sticking strictly to BRAT for more than a day because it lacks protein, calcium, vitamin B12, and enough fiber for recovery. The American Academy of Pediatrics specifically advises against a strict BRAT diet for children with diarrhea, noting it can actually slow recovery if followed for more than 24 hours.
A better approach is to think of BRAT as a starting lineup, then expand as your stomach allows:
- Bananas: Easy to digest, rich in potassium (which you lose through vomiting or diarrhea), and gentle on the stomach lining.
- White rice or plain pasta: Low fiber, quick to digest, provides energy without irritation.
- Toast or crackers: Dry starch absorbs stomach acid. Skip the butter.
- Applesauce: Easier to tolerate than raw apples because the fiber is already broken down.
- Broth or clear soup: Replaces fluids and sodium. Chicken broth is especially useful because it provides a small amount of protein.
- Plain boiled potatoes: Starchy, filling, easy on the gut.
- Steamed chicken (no skin): Once you can handle starches, lean protein helps your body actually recover rather than just survive on carbs.
What to Avoid
Certain foods will make almost any stomach ache worse. Greasy or fried foods sit in the stomach far longer because fat delays emptying. Dairy can be difficult to process when your gut is inflamed, even if you’re not normally lactose intolerant. Spicy foods, acidic foods like tomatoes and citrus, caffeine, and alcohol all increase stomach acid production or irritate the stomach lining directly.
Raw vegetables and high-fiber foods like whole grains, beans, and raw fruit (besides bananas) also deserve a temporary pause. They’re healthy under normal circumstances, but when your stomach is struggling, fiber creates more bulk and slows transit, which is the opposite of what you want.
Drinks That Help
Staying hydrated matters more than eating when your stomach is upset, especially if you’re vomiting or have diarrhea. Plain water is the baseline, but it doesn’t replace the sodium and potassium you’re losing.
You can make a simple rehydration drink at home: 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 water and salt more efficiently. If plain water with salt and sugar sounds unappealing, chicken broth works on the same principle, or you can add half a teaspoon of salt to 32 ounces of a low-sugar sports drink.
Start with small sips rather than gulping. If you’ve been vomiting, ice chips for the first few hours let your stomach rest before you introduce liquids in larger amounts.
Ginger and Peppermint for Nausea
If nausea is your main symptom, ginger is one of the most well-supported natural remedies. A review of five studies found that a daily dose of about 1 gram of ginger was more effective than a placebo at reducing nausea. That translates to roughly 1 teaspoon of freshly grated ginger, 4 cups of ginger tea, or two small pieces of crystallized ginger candy. Splitting the dose across the day works better than taking it all at once.
Peppermint can help with cramping. The American College of Gastroenterology has recommended peppermint oil for relief of irritable bowel symptoms, and it may reduce spasms in the digestive tract more broadly. Peppermint tea is the gentlest option. Peppermint oil capsules are stronger but can sometimes cause heartburn, so enteric-coated versions (which dissolve in the intestine rather than the stomach) tend to work better.
How Quickly to Return to Normal Eating
If your stomach ache is from a stomach bug or food poisoning, recovery typically follows a general pattern. During the worst of it, stick to ice chips and small sips of clear liquid. After about 6 hours, if you’re keeping fluids down, try broth or the rehydration drink. After 24 hours, introduce bland solids like rice, toast, and bananas. Within about a week, most people are back to their normal diet.
That timeline is flexible. Some people feel ready for bland food within a few hours, while others need a full day of liquids only. The key signal is whether you can keep down what you just had. If clear liquids stay down for a couple of hours, try a few bites of something bland. If that works, gradually add more variety. Don’t jump straight to pizza.
For stomach aches caused by something other than an infection (stress, indigestion, overeating), you typically don’t need to follow such a strict progression. Eating something bland, skipping the next heavy meal, and letting your stomach reset for a few hours is usually enough.
Signs Your Stomach Ache Needs Medical Attention
Most stomach aches resolve on their own, but certain symptoms point to something more serious. Blood in your stool or vomit always warrants a call to your doctor. Green vomit can signal a blockage in the intestine. Pain concentrated in the lower right side of your abdomen could indicate appendicitis.
A stomach ache combined with hives, facial swelling, dizziness, or pale skin suggests a severe allergic reaction and requires emergency care. If the pain is so severe that you can’t be distracted from it, or if stomach aches keep coming back alongside unexplained weight loss, those patterns need professional evaluation rather than dietary management at home.