When you have a stomach virus, eat whatever sounds appealing once your appetite starts to return. The old advice to stick strictly to bland foods has largely fallen out of favor. Research shows that following a restricted diet does not help treat viral gastroenteritis, and most experts no longer recommend fasting or limiting yourself to a handful of “safe” foods. That said, some choices will sit easier than others, and a few things genuinely make symptoms worse.
Start With Fluids, Then Follow Your Appetite
During the worst of the vomiting, food is not the priority. Replacing lost fluids is. Small, frequent sips of water, broth, or an oral rehydration solution work better than gulping large amounts at once, which can trigger more nausea. For children, an oral rehydration solution like Pedialyte is a better choice than sports drinks because it contains less sugar and more electrolytes. Infants should continue breastfeeding or formula feeding as usual.
Once vomiting has stopped for roughly six to eight hours, you can start eating solid food again. There is no mandatory waiting period beyond that. Let your appetite guide you. If you feel hungry, eat. If nothing sounds good yet, keep sipping fluids and try again in a few hours.
Foods That Are Easiest to Tolerate
You don’t need to follow a strict list, but your stomach will probably prefer simple, low-fat, easy-to-digest options at first. Good starting points include:
- Plain starches: white rice, oatmeal, boiled potatoes, crackers, toast, unsweetened dry cereal
- Brothy soups: chicken broth or vegetable broth with soft noodles or rice
- Soft fruits and vegetables: bananas, cooked carrots, cooked squash (butternut or pumpkin), sweet potatoes without the skin, avocado
- Lean proteins: skinless chicken or turkey, fish, eggs
You may have heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. It’s fine for a day or two, but there is no research showing it works better than simply eating a broader range of gentle foods. Limiting yourself to just those four items for more than a couple of days can leave you short on protein, fat, and key nutrients right when your body needs to recover.
What to Avoid Until You Feel Better
A few categories of food and drink can actively make diarrhea worse or irritate an already inflamed gut.
Sugary drinks are one of the biggest culprits. Sugar pulls water into the intestines, which loosens stools and can intensify diarrhea. Fructose is especially problematic. It shows up in fruit juice, soda, applesauce with added sugar, and many flavored beverages. Even 100% fruit juice can be too much sugar for a recovering gut. Stick to water, broth, or an electrolyte solution instead.
Caffeine speeds up the digestive tract, which is the last thing you need when you already have diarrhea. That means coffee, tea, chocolate, and caffeinated sodas are all worth skipping for a few days.
Fatty or greasy foods take longer to digest and can cause cramping and nausea when your stomach is already struggling. Save the pizza and fried food for when you’re fully recovered.
Spicy foods and heavily seasoned dishes can irritate the lining of the stomach and intestines, making nausea and abdominal pain worse.
Dairy May Bother You Temporarily
A stomach virus can damage the lining of the small intestine, which is where your body produces the enzyme that breaks down lactose (the sugar in milk). This means you may develop a temporary lactose intolerance even if dairy has never been a problem for you before. Drinking milk or eating ice cream during recovery can cause bloating, gas, and more diarrhea.
This effect typically resolves within three to four weeks as the intestinal lining heals. In the meantime, you don’t necessarily need to avoid all dairy. Yogurt and aged cheeses contain less lactose and are often tolerated well. But if a glass of milk makes your symptoms flare, give it a rest for a few weeks.
Probiotics Can Shorten Recovery
Certain probiotic strains have solid evidence behind them for speeding up recovery from viral gastroenteritis. One strain in particular, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (often labeled LGG on supplement bottles), has been shown to reduce both the duration and severity of diarrhea in children with acute gastroenteritis. The effective dose in studies is at least 10 billion colony-forming units per day, taken for five to seven days. Starting sooner rather than later produces better results.
You can get LGG from certain yogurt brands and probiotic supplements. Look for the specific strain name on the label. Not all probiotics are equally effective for this purpose. In a head-to-head comparison of five common probiotic products, only LGG and a multi-strain mixture significantly reduced diarrhea duration.
Hydration Matters More Than Food
The real danger of a stomach virus is not going a day without eating. It’s dehydration. Vomiting and diarrhea drain fluids and electrolytes fast, especially in young children and older adults. Water alone replaces fluid but not the sodium and potassium your body is losing. Oral rehydration solutions are formulated for exactly this situation. Broth is another good option because it contains sodium naturally.
Sports drinks are a reasonable backup for adults, as many contain 250 milligrams or more of sodium per serving, but they also tend to have more sugar than ideal. For children, oral rehydration solutions are the better choice.
Watch for signs that dehydration is becoming serious: no urination for eight hours or more, dry lips and tongue, no tears when crying (in children), sunken eyes, or dry and wrinkled skin. In infants, a sunken soft spot on the head is a red flag. Severe dehydration sometimes requires IV fluids in a hospital, so these symptoms warrant immediate medical attention.
Getting Back to Normal Eating
Most people can return to their regular diet within two to three days, even if mild diarrhea lingers. You don’t need to wait for every symptom to disappear before eating normally. Reintroduce foods gradually based on what feels right. If something causes cramping or nausea, set it aside and try again the next day. Your body will tell you what it’s ready for.
Children recover the same way. Give them their usual foods as soon as their appetite comes back. There is no benefit to keeping kids on a restricted diet longer than necessary, and doing so can slow their recovery by depriving them of the calories and nutrients they need to heal.