When your stomach hurts, the best foods are bland, low-fiber, and low-fat: think white rice, plain crackers, bananas, broth, and eggs. These require minimal effort from your digestive system, which means less churning, less acid production, and less irritation while your stomach settles. What you avoid matters just as much as what you eat, and how you prepare food can make a real difference too.
Best Foods for an Upset Stomach
The goal is to eat things that move through your stomach easily without triggering more pain. Fat naturally slows stomach emptying, and fiber adds bulk your gut has to work harder to break down. That leaves you with refined, simply prepared foods as your safest options.
For meals and snacks, reach for white rice, plain pasta or noodles, saltine crackers, white bread or flour tortillas, peeled and boiled or baked potatoes, scrambled or poached eggs, and skinless chicken or turkey (baked or broiled, not fried). Creamy peanut butter on white toast works too. If you want something sweet, bananas and applesauce are gentle choices, along with canned peaches or pears. Plain or vanilla yogurt is usually well tolerated and adds some protein.
Clear broth, whether chicken, vegetable, or beef, is one of the easiest things to get down when eating feels difficult. Strain or puree it if needed, but avoid soups made with beans, broccoli, cabbage, or cream, all of which can worsen bloating and discomfort.
Staying Hydrated Without Making It Worse
Stomach pain often comes with nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea, all of which drain fluids and electrolytes fast. Plain water is fine for mild situations, but if you’ve been vomiting or have diarrhea, you need to replace sodium and glucose together. Your gut absorbs water most efficiently when sodium and glucose arrive in roughly equal amounts. Commercial oral rehydration solutions (like Pedialyte) are designed for this purpose and are available at most pharmacies and grocery stores.
Sports drinks, sodas, and fruit juices are not good substitutes. They typically contain too much sugar and too little sodium, and the excess carbohydrate can actually pull more water into your intestines and make diarrhea worse. If you’re drinking a carbonated beverage, let it go flat first, since the carbonation can increase bloating. Sip slowly in small amounts rather than gulping, especially if nausea is part of the picture.
Warm beverages like tea tend to be easier on the digestive system than ice-cold drinks. Research from San Diego State University found that frequent cold drink consumption was associated with greater feelings of abdominal fullness, while hot beverage drinkers reported fewer digestive symptoms. This aligns with long-held practices in traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, which caution against excessive cold consumption during digestive distress.
What About the BRAT Diet?
The BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) has been the go-to advice for decades, but it’s no longer recommended as a strict protocol. Those four foods are fine to eat, but following only this list for more than a day or two leaves you short on calcium, vitamin B12, protein, and fiber. The American Academy of Pediatrics specifically advises against the BRAT diet for children with diarrhea because it’s too restrictive and may actually slow recovery. For adults, treat BRAT foods as a starting point, not the entire menu. As your stomach tolerates it, add eggs, plain chicken, yogurt, and other gentle foods to get adequate nutrition.
Foods That Will Likely Make It Worse
Certain foods slow stomach emptying, increase acid production, or generate gas, all of which amplify pain. The main categories to avoid:
- High-fat foods: Fried anything, greasy fast food, bacon, sausage, cream sauces, gravies, and full-fat dairy like whole milk and heavy cream. Fat is the single biggest factor in slowing down your stomach.
- High-fiber foods: Raw vegetables, whole grains, oatmeal, bran cereal, granola, nuts, seeds, popcorn, dried fruit, and coconut. Look for foods with no more than 1 to 2 grams of fiber per serving.
- Gas-producing foods: Beans of all kinds, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, onions, peppers, and corn.
- Dense or tough starches: Bagels, dumplings, thick pizza crust, and heavy pasta like gnocchi or tortellini can sit in your stomach for a long time.
- Raw fruits with skins: Apples, berries, cherries, and grapes. Stick to canned or cooked fruit with skins removed.
- Alcohol: It directly impairs stomach emptying and irritates the stomach lining.
- Caffeine and spicy foods: Both can increase acid production and worsen cramping.
How to Prepare Food for Easier Digestion
The way you cook matters as much as what you cook. Boiling, steaming, baking, and poaching are the gentlest methods because they soften food without adding fat. Frying, sautéing in oil, or charring on a grill all introduce fat or create tougher textures that demand more work from your stomach.
Peel fruits and vegetables before cooking, since skins are the highest-fiber part. Cook vegetables until they’re very tender rather than leaving them crisp. If you’re having trouble getting food down at all, pureeing soups or making smoothies with tolerated ingredients (banana, yogurt, a little rice cereal) can help you get calories without your stomach having to do the mechanical work of breaking down solid food. Eat smaller portions more frequently rather than three large meals. A stomach that’s overfull stretches more, produces more acid, and is more likely to cause pain.
Ginger and Peppermint for Stomach Cramps
Two natural options have solid clinical evidence behind them. Ginger has been studied primarily for nausea, with effective doses ranging from 250 mg of powdered ginger four times daily to 500 mg twice daily. You don’t need capsules: ginger tea made from fresh sliced ginger root, or even flat ginger ale made with real ginger, can help settle nausea. Start with small amounts, since too much ginger on an empty stomach can itself cause irritation.
Peppermint works differently. It relaxes the smooth muscle in your digestive tract by blocking calcium signaling in the gut wall, which directly reduces cramping and spasms. In clinical trials, 76 to 79 percent of patients who took peppermint oil capsules experienced a significant reduction in abdominal pain severity, compared to just 19 to 43 percent on placebo. Peppermint tea is a milder option and worth trying if your pain involves cramping or a feeling of tightness. One caution: if your stomach pain involves acid reflux, peppermint can relax the valve between your esophagus and stomach, potentially making heartburn worse.
Signs Your Stomach Pain Needs Medical Attention
Most stomach pain from a virus, mild food poisoning, or stress resolves within a day or two with gentle eating and hydration. But certain patterns signal something more serious. Seek emergency care if the pain is so severe you can’t function normally, if you’re vomiting and unable to keep any liquids down, or if you develop a fever alongside the pain.
Pain that starts near your belly button and migrates to your lower right side, especially if it worsens when you move, cough, or take deep breaths, is a classic pattern for appendicitis and needs immediate evaluation. Upper abdominal pain that starts mild and gets progressively worse after eating, particularly with nausea, fever, and a rapid pulse, can point to pancreatitis. If you’ve had abdominal surgery in the past and develop new pain with constipation or inability to pass gas, that combination also warrants urgent attention.