When your stomach hurts, the best thing to eat is something soft, low in fat, and gentle on your digestive system. Think plain rice, bananas, broth-based soup, toast, boiled potatoes, and applesauce. These foods require minimal effort from your stomach to break down, which means less acid production and less irritation while your gut recovers.
Start Simple, Then Expand
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. It’s a fine starting point for the first day or two when your stomach is at its worst, but there’s no need to limit yourself to just those four foods. No studies have actually compared the BRAT diet to other approaches, and sticking with it too long leaves you short on protein and nutrients you need to heal.
A better strategy is to begin with BRAT-style foods when the pain or nausea is intense, then broaden your choices as your stomach settles. Good additions include brothy soups, oatmeal, boiled potatoes, crackers, unsweetened dry cereal, and eggs. Once you’re tolerating those, move on to cooked carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes without the skin, avocado, skinless chicken or turkey, and fish. These are all bland and easy to digest while still giving your body the protein and vitamins it needs to recover.
Foods That Are Easiest to Digest
The general principle is soft, low-fiber, and low-fat. Your stomach has to work harder to process tough, fibrous, or greasy foods, and that extra work means more acid and more churning, both of which make pain worse. Here’s what fits the bill:
- Fruits: Bananas, applesauce, canned fruit, and melons. Avoid citrus if you have acid reflux.
- Grains: White rice, white bread, plain crackers, refined hot cereals like cream of wheat, and plain pasta.
- Proteins: Eggs, tofu, skinless chicken or turkey (baked or broiled), and white fish (poached or broiled).
- Vegetables: Cooked or canned vegetables like carrots, squash, and peeled potatoes. Raw vegetables are harder to break down.
- Other: Broth and broth-based soups, gelatin, popsicles, creamy peanut butter, weak tea.
How you prepare food matters as much as what you choose. Steaming, boiling, baking, and poaching are the gentlest cooking methods. Frying adds fat that slows digestion and can trigger more acid production. Peel the skin off potatoes and remove skin from poultry before cooking.
Foods to Avoid Until You Feel Better
Spicy foods, greasy or fried foods, highly processed snacks, and sugary treats all trigger more acid production and can irritate an already inflamed stomach lining. Alcohol is particularly damaging. It directly irritates the stomach’s mucosal lining, and the severity of that damage is proportional to how much and how long you drink.
Caffeine and carbonated drinks can also make things worse. Coffee stimulates acid secretion, and carbonation introduces gas that can increase bloating and cramping. Citrus fruits, tomatoes, and tomato-based sauces are common triggers for people prone to reflux. High-fiber raw vegetables, whole grains, and beans are normally healthy choices, but when your stomach is irritated, they demand too much digestive effort and can increase gas and discomfort.
If you’ve been taking over-the-counter pain relievers like ibuprofen or aspirin, those may actually be contributing to your stomach pain. These medications are known to cause gastrointestinal side effects, including irritation of the stomach lining.
Drinks That Help With Nausea and Cramping
Ginger is one of the most studied natural remedies for nausea. In clinical trials, ginger supplementation of up to 1 gram per day for more than three days reduced the likelihood of vomiting by 60% compared to a placebo. You don’t need supplements to get this benefit. Ginger tea, made by steeping fresh sliced ginger in hot water, or flat ginger ale made with real ginger, can help settle your stomach.
Peppermint is another good option, especially if your stomach pain involves cramping or spasms. Peppermint relaxes the smooth muscles in your digestive tract, which can ease that tight, clenching sensation. A review of nine studies found that peppermint provided significantly better symptom relief than a placebo in people with irritable bowel syndrome, and a separate review of 14 clinical trials in nearly 2,000 children showed it reduced the frequency, length, and severity of abdominal pain. Peppermint tea is the simplest way to try this, though most of the clinical research used peppermint oil capsules.
Plain water, clear broths, and weak tea round out your best beverage options. Sip slowly rather than gulping, since drinking too fast can introduce air into your stomach and worsen bloating.
If You Have Diarrhea With Your Stomach Pain
When stomach pain comes with loose stools, soluble fiber can help. Soluble fiber dissolves in water and forms a gel-like material in your stomach that slows digestion and absorbs excess fluid, adding bulk back to your stool. The best food sources of soluble fiber include oats, bananas, applesauce, cooked carrots, and peeled potatoes. These overlap nicely with the bland foods already recommended, so you can address both problems at once.
Avoid insoluble fiber when you have diarrhea. That means steering clear of raw vegetables, whole wheat products, nuts, and seeds until things firm up. Dairy can also worsen diarrhea for some people, so if you notice a connection, stick with low-fat or fat-free options or skip dairy entirely until you recover.
Adding Fermented Foods During Recovery
Once the worst of your symptoms have passed, fermented foods can help restore the balance of beneficial bacteria in your gut, particularly after a stomach virus or food poisoning. Yogurt with live active cultures, kefir, sauerkraut, and kimchi all contain natural probiotics.
Not all fermented foods are created equal, though. Many store-bought pickles and sauerkraut are made with vinegar rather than natural fermentation, which means they contain no live probiotics. Look for labels that say “naturally fermented,” and check for small bubbles in the liquid when you open the jar. Those bubbles indicate live organisms are present. Introduce these foods gradually. If your stomach is still sensitive, the acidity in fermented foods can cause discomfort.
Signs Your Stomach Pain Needs Medical Attention
Most stomach pain resolves on its own within a day or two with gentle eating and rest. But certain symptoms signal something more serious. Sudden, severe abdominal pain, especially if your abdomen looks visibly swollen or distended, can indicate a condition that requires urgent treatment. A rapid heart rate, low blood pressure, sweating, or confusion are signs of shock. Pain that gets dramatically worse when you gently press on your abdomen or even bump into something could indicate inflammation inside the abdominal cavity.
Blood in your vomit or stool, a fever above 101.5°F that won’t break, inability to keep any fluids down for more than 24 hours, or pain that’s getting progressively worse rather than better are all reasons to seek care promptly rather than waiting it out.