You can eat more than you probably think. Most experts no longer recommend fasting or following a strict restricted diet when you have a stomach virus. Once your appetite starts coming back, you can return to your normal diet in most cases, even if you still have diarrhea. The real priority while you’re sick isn’t food at all: it’s staying hydrated.
Hydration Comes First
Before worrying about food, focus on replacing the fluids you’re losing through vomiting and diarrhea. Small, frequent sips work better than drinking a full glass at once, which can trigger more nausea. Water is fine, but oral rehydration solutions like Pedialyte are more effective because they replace the salts and minerals your body is losing alongside the water.
Broth-based soups pull double duty here: they provide fluid, sodium, and a small amount of calories. If plain water makes your stomach churn, try sucking on ice chips or sipping diluted juice. Avoid caffeinated drinks, alcohol, and anything carbonated until your symptoms settle, since all three can worsen dehydration or irritate your stomach lining.
The BRAT Diet: Helpful but Not Required
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. It’s fine for a day or two when nothing else sounds appealing, but there’s no scientific evidence that limiting yourself to just those four foods speeds recovery. Harvard Health notes there aren’t any studies comparing BRAT to other approaches, and the NIDDK’s current guidance says a restricted diet doesn’t help treat viral gastroenteritis.
The problem with BRAT is nutritional. Those four foods are low in protein, fat, and many vitamins. If you stick with them for more than a couple of days, you’re depriving your body of nutrients it needs to recover. Think of BRAT foods as a starting point, not the whole plan.
Foods That Are Easy on Your Stomach
Once you feel ready to eat, aim for bland, easy-to-digest options and expand from there as you tolerate them. Good choices include:
- Starches: plain rice, oatmeal, boiled potatoes, crackers, unsweetened dry cereal, toast
- Cooked vegetables: butternut or pumpkin squash, carrots, sweet potatoes without skin
- Proteins: skinless chicken or turkey, fish, eggs
- Fruits and fats: bananas, applesauce, avocado
- Soups: brothy soups with simple ingredients like rice or noodles
These foods are bland enough to sit well in an irritated stomach, but they also contain the protein, potassium, and other nutrients your body needs while it fights off the virus. Eat small amounts at first. If a few bites stay down, try a little more in an hour or two.
Foods Worth Avoiding Temporarily
While there’s no strict “banned” list, some foods are more likely to make nausea and diarrhea worse. Greasy, fried, or very rich foods are harder to digest and can amplify cramping. Very sugary foods and drinks, including full-strength fruit juice and sodas, can draw extra water into your intestines and worsen diarrhea.
Dairy is a gray area. Some people temporarily lose the ability to fully digest lactose (the sugar in milk) during a stomach virus because the infection damages the cells lining the small intestine. If milk, ice cream, or cheese seems to make your symptoms worse, skip them for a few days and reintroduce them once you feel better. Yogurt is often tolerated more easily than milk because the bacteria in it have already broken down some of the lactose.
Spicy foods, alcohol, and coffee are also worth skipping until your gut has calmed down.
Ginger and Peppermint for Nausea
If nausea is keeping you from eating or drinking at all, ginger can help settle your stomach. Fresh ginger tea is simple to make: simmer a few thin slices of peeled ginger in a cup of water for about five minutes, strain it, and add a little honey. Pairing it with a mint tea bag adds a second layer of relief. Ginger candies or ginger chews are another option if making tea sounds like too much effort while you’re sick.
Probiotics Probably Won’t Help
It’s tempting to reach for a probiotic supplement, but the evidence isn’t encouraging. A large study of nearly 1,000 young children published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that a widely sold probiotic (Culturelle, containing Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG) made no difference in how long diarrhea lasted or how quickly kids recovered compared to a placebo. A second study in the same journal tested a different probiotic and found the same thing. In both groups, diarrhea lasted about two days regardless. These studies focused on children, but they cast doubt on the broader assumption that probiotics shorten a stomach virus.
How to Tell If You’re Getting Dehydrated
Dehydration is the main complication of a stomach virus, and it’s the reason hydration matters more than food. Watch for dark-colored urine, urinating much less than usual, extreme thirst, dry mouth, dizziness, or feeling unusually tired. A quick skin test can help too: pinch the skin on the back of your hand and release it. If it doesn’t flatten back to normal right away, you may be dehydrated.
In infants and young children, the warning signs include no wet diapers for three or more hours, no tears when crying, sunken eyes, and unusual irritability or listlessness.
Seek medical help if diarrhea lasts more than two days, you have a high fever, you’re vomiting so often you can’t keep fluids down, you notice blood in your stool, or you develop signs of dehydration that aren’t improving with oral rehydration. For infants, the threshold is lower: any fever, diarrhea lasting more than a day, or signs of dehydration warrant a call to the doctor. Older adults, pregnant women, and anyone with a weakened immune system should also get checked sooner rather than later.