BRAT Diet: Is It Still Recommended? What to Eat Instead

The BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce and toast) is no longer recommended as a stand-alone plan for diarrhea or an upset stomach. CDC guidance calls it "unnecessarily restrictive," and current advice is to keep drinking, then return to your normal diet as soon as you feel like eating^[1][2].

Those four foods are still reasonable choices; the problem is eating only them. This guide covers why the advice changed, what to eat and drink instead, step by step through a stomach bug, which foods to skip, and which foods may firm stool.

Get medical help promptly if you have blood or pus in your stool, black tarry stool, frequent vomiting, severe belly or rectal pain, or signs of dehydration such as dark urine, dizziness or very little urine^[3]. These need a clinician, not a diet change.

What is the BRAT diet?

BRAT is a memory aid for four bland, low-fiber foods long suggested for diarrhea, nausea and stomach flu: bananas, rice, applesauce and toast. It belongs to a wider "bland diet" pattern: foods that are soft, not spicy and low in fiber^[4], close to a short-term low-fiber diet.

The logic was gentleness, not treatment. Applesauce and bananas carry pectin, a soluble fiber, and green bananas and pectin do have some trial evidence in children with persistent diarrhea^[1][5]. White rice and white toast are easy starches that rarely aggravate an upset stomach.

Why is the BRAT diet no longer recommended?

Because restricting food does not help you recover faster, and eating normally may help. The 2003 CDC guideline put it plainly: the BRAT diet is "unnecessarily restrictive" and, like juice-centered diets, "can provide suboptimal nutrition for the patient's nourishment and recovering gut"^[1].

The evidence behind that shift:

• Early feeding shortens illness. An American Academy of Pediatrics meta-analysis found that refeeding with milk or food after rehydration does not prolong diarrhea and may shorten it by about half a day^[6].
• Fasting does not help. Withholding food for 24 hours is "inappropriate" in children, and in adults stopping solid food for a day does not appear useful^[1][7].
• Early food protects the gut lining. Early feeding reduces infection-related changes in intestinal permeability and improves nutritional outcomes^[1].
• Restricted diets lack proof in adults too. A review for family physicians notes that data supporting the BRAT diet and avoiding dairy in adults are limited^[7].

The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend the BRAT diet for children unless those foods are already part of the child's usual diet^[8]. For viral gastroenteritis, the NIH says research shows a restricted diet does not help, and you can usually go back to normal food once your appetite returns, even with ongoing diarrhea^[9].

What to eat when you have diarrhea: what else you can eat beyond BRAT

Eat a normal, balanced diet in smaller portions, leaning on foods that are easy to digest and not greasy or very sugary^[2]. CDC guidance for children lists complex carbohydrates, meats, yogurt, fruits and vegetables^[1]. In practice, a bland diet that includes protein works well for most adults.

A little fat is fine. CDC notes that eating enough calories without any fat is difficult, and fat may slow intestinal movement^[1]. What to limit is high-fat food: fried food, pizza and fast food^[2].

What should you eat when you're sick with a stomach bug? A step-by-step plan

Use this as a general pattern for the first few days of acute diarrhea or stomach flu. It replaces the BRAT diet's "four foods for days" with fluids first, then normal food. If you are unsure whether it is a virus or something you ate, see our guide to stomach flu vs. food poisoning.

1. First few hours: fluids. Rehydration comes first, ideally with an oral rehydration solution (ORS) sipped often^[7]. In children who need rehydration, guidelines replace the fluid deficit over about 3 to 4 hours^[1].
2. When you feel hungry: eat. Start with small portions of bland foods from the table above. Early refeeding is the evidence-backed step, so do not wait for diarrhea to stop^[6][9].
3. Days 2 to 3: widen the menu. Add back your usual foods as tolerated. CDC advises increasing intake to make up for calories lost during the illness^[1].
4. The next few weeks: watch dairy. Some people digest lactose poorly for up to a month or more after acute diarrhea^[2]. If milk brings symptoms back, read our lactose intolerance page.

What to eat after vomiting

Let vomiting settle, then sip ORS in small amounts before trying food. Children with gastroenteritis should not be given solid food while they are being rehydrated, and usual food is reintroduced afterward^[10]. Dry, plain starches such as toast or crackers are a sensible first test, but they do not treat nausea itself. Frequent vomiting is a reason to call a doctor^[3].

Babies and children

• Keep breastfeeding throughout, including during rehydration^[1][10].
• Formula can usually continue at full strength, and milk-based products do not need to be avoided in most children^[1][11].
• Children eating solids should go back to their usual, age-appropriate diet once rehydrated^[11].
• A Cochrane review of 33 trials found lactose-free products may shorten diarrhea by about 18 hours in children under 5 who were not mainly breastfed, mostly in hospital settings^[12]. Ask your pediatrician before switching formula.

What should you drink with diarrhea?

An oral rehydration solution is the standard. It pairs salt and sugar in a ratio that uses the gut's sodium-glucose transport, and the reduced-osmolarity version endorsed by the WHO in 2002 lowers stool output, vomiting and the need for IV fluids^[7][1].

The apple-juice trial covers only children with mild illness in a high-income setting, so it does not apply to a child who is already dehydrated^[13].

What can't you eat during diarrhea? Foods to avoid

Skip the foods most likely to pull extra water into the bowel or speed it up. The NIH lists these for acute diarrhea^[2]:

• alcohol;
• caffeinated coffee, tea and soft drinks;
• foods and drinks high in simple sugars, such as sweetened drinks, some fruit juices, candy and packaged desserts;
• sugar alcohols, found in sugarless gum and candy;
• high-fat foods such as fried food, pizza and fast food;
• milk products, if lactose bothers you.

A bland diet also usually leaves out raw vegetables, whole-grain and bran cereals, dried fruit and hot spices^[4]. These are temporary limits. Most experts do not recommend any further restriction^[2].

What foods harden up diarrhea and firm stool?

A few have trial evidence, mostly in children. Cooked green (unripe) banana is the strongest: a 2024 meta-analysis of 9 randomized trials in 3,996 children found green-banana foods roughly doubled the rate of diarrhea resolution (HR 1.96) when added to standard care^[14]. In one trial of children with acute watery diarrhea, 62.4% recovered within 72 hours with green banana versus 47.2% without^[15].

Pectin, the fiber in applesauce, showed similar results in an earlier hospital trial. By day 3, 59% of infants given pectin and 55% given green banana had recovered, versus 15% on rice alone^[5]. That study involved persistent diarrhea, not a typical 2-day bug, and no trials have tested ripe bananas or store-bought applesauce in adults.

How gut bacteria are involved

Green banana and pectin work through your gut bacteria. Both are nondigestible carbohydrates that colon microbes ferment into short-chain fatty acids, and in infants with persistent diarrhea they improved gut permeability and cut stool weight by about half^[16].

Short-chain fatty acids enhance sodium absorption in the colon. In a trial of 48 adults and teens with cholera, adding resistant starch to ORS shortened diarrhea from about 91 to 57 hours^[17]. Rice-based ORS reduced first-day stool output by 32% to 36% in cholera, but only 18% in children with other acute diarrhea^[18].

After a severe infection such as Vibrio cholerae, gut bacteria regrow in a predictable sequence, with shifts in Bacteroides and Prevotella along the way^[19]. Whether diet can steer that recovery in people is still an open question. A food-starved, starch-only diet gives those microbes little to work with, which is one more reason guidelines favor returning to varied food^[1].

For supplements, the evidence is strain-specific: see probiotics for diarrhea and our profile of the yeast Saccharomyces boulardii.

When to see a doctor

Most acute diarrhea from viral gastroenteritis settles on its own^[7]. Contact a clinician right away if you or someone you care for has^[3]:

• signs of dehydration: extreme thirst, little or dark urine, dizziness, sunken eyes;
• black, tarry stool, or stool with blood or pus;
• frequent vomiting or severe pain in the belly or rectum;
• confusion, unusual irritability or lack of energy;
• in adults: diarrhea for more than 2 days, a high fever, or six or more loose stools a day;
• in infants: any fever, refusing to eat or drink for more than a few hours, or no wet diapers for 3 hours or more.

Babies under 12 months, children born prematurely, pregnant people, adults over 65 and anyone with a weakened immune system or on antibiotics should keep in closer contact with a clinician^[3]. Anti-diarrhea medicine such as loperamide is not appropriate for bloody diarrhea^[7]. If loose stools keep coming back, our diarrhea page covers longer-term causes, including traveler's diarrhea, and the Bristol stool chart can help you describe what you are seeing.

This article is for general educational purposes and is not medical advice. Diet supports recovery from diarrhea but does not replace rehydration or medical assessment, and the trials of specific foods were done mainly in children. Talk to a qualified healthcare professional before changing a child's formula or starting any remedy, and seek care promptly, particularly if you are pregnant, immunocompromised, taking prescription medication, or managing a diagnosed condition.