When you’re nauseous, the best foods are bland, low-fat, and easy to digest: think crackers, plain rice, toast, bananas, and broth. The goal is to give your stomach something simple to work with without triggering more nausea. An empty stomach often makes nausea worse, so eating small amounts of the right foods can actually help you feel better faster than skipping meals entirely.
Start With the Simplest Foods
If your nausea is intense and you’re not sure you can keep anything down, begin with dry, starchy foods. Saltine crackers, plain toast, and pretzels are reliable starting points because they absorb stomach acid and require very little digestive effort. You don’t need to eat a full portion. A few bites are enough to settle things.
Once those sit well, you can expand to other bland options:
- Starches: white rice, plain pasta, boiled or mashed potatoes, oatmeal
- Fruits: bananas, applesauce, canned fruits
- Proteins: baked skinless chicken, tofu, eggs
- Soups: clear broth or blended soups without cream
- Other: yogurt, gelatin, pudding, smoothies
Cold or room-temperature foods tend to work better than hot meals. Hot food releases more aroma, and strong smells are one of the fastest ways to make nausea worse.
The BRAT Diet: Helpful but Limited
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast). It’s fine for the first day or two when your stomach is at its worst. But as Harvard Health Publishing notes, there’s no need to limit yourself to only those four foods. They’re low in protein and nutrients, which your body needs to recover, especially if you’ve been vomiting.
Once your stomach starts to settle, add more nutritious options like cooked carrots, sweet potatoes without skin, butternut squash, avocado, skinless poultry, fish, and eggs. These are still bland and easy to digest but give your body something to work with beyond simple carbohydrates.
How You Eat Matters as Much as What You Eat
Portion size and pacing make a real difference. Eating small meals and snacks throughout the day, rather than two or three large ones, keeps your stomach from stretching too much. An overly full stomach increases pressure and can ramp nausea right back up. Eat slowly and stop before you feel full.
One tip that surprises people: don’t drink fluids with your meals. Liquid takes up stomach space and can make you feel uncomfortably full. Try to separate drinks from food by at least 30 to 60 minutes. Sip fluids between meals instead.
Staying Hydrated Without Making It Worse
Dehydration is the biggest risk when nausea leads to vomiting or loss of appetite. But gulping water on an upset stomach usually backfires. The better approach is small, frequent sips. A good target is about two large sips (roughly 30 mL) every three to five minutes. If you’re actively trying to rehydrate, aim for about 1,000 mL of an electrolyte drink over two hours at that pace.
Good fluid choices include clear apple juice, white grape juice, broth, flat ginger ale or clear soda, water, and herbal teas (ginger and peppermint especially). If you vomit after drinking, slow down the pace rather than stopping entirely.
Why Ginger Actually Works
Ginger isn’t just a folk remedy. It appears to work by blocking serotonin receptors in the gut and brain, both of which play a role in triggering the vomit reflex. Most clinical studies have used 250 mg to 1 g of powdered ginger root per day, often split into multiple doses.
You don’t need capsules to get the benefit. Ginger tea, ginger chews, and even flat ginger ale (with real ginger) can help. For pregnancy-related nausea specifically, the most studied dose is 250 mg of ginger four times daily, but even smaller amounts from food sources can take the edge off.
Foods That Will Make Nausea Worse
Fatty and greasy foods are the biggest offenders. Fat slows stomach emptying, which means food sits in your stomach longer and increases that heavy, queasy feeling. Fried foods, creamy sauces, rich desserts, and fatty meats should all wait until you’re feeling better.
Other triggers to avoid:
- High-fiber foods: raw vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts are harder to break down and can worsen nausea
- Spicy foods: they irritate the stomach lining and increase acid production
- Strong-smelling foods: anything with a potent aroma, hot or cold, can trigger nausea before you even take a bite
- Alcohol: it directly slows stomach emptying and irritates the digestive tract
- Very sweet foods: concentrated sugar can cause discomfort in a sensitive stomach
A Simple Progression to Follow
Think of recovery in stages. In the first few hours when nausea is strongest, stick to clear fluids: broth, diluted juice, water, or ginger tea in small sips. Once you can keep liquids down, move to dry starches like crackers and toast. From there, add soft bland foods like rice, bananas, applesauce, and plain chicken. Finally, as your stomach stabilizes over a day or two, reintroduce more nutritious foods like cooked vegetables, eggs, fish, and avocado.
There’s no strict timeline. Let your stomach guide you. If something makes nausea worse, drop back a stage and try again later. The combination of small portions, bland choices, cold or room-temperature foods, and separated fluids covers most cases of nausea, whether it’s from a stomach bug, motion sickness, medication side effects, or morning sickness.