Diarrhea Diet: What to Eat and Avoid to Recover Fast

When you have diarrhoea, drink oral rehydration solution (ORS) first: about a cup after each loose stool, plus water and clear soups. Keep eating small, bland meals such as khichdi, plain or curd rice, bananas, toast, boiled potatoes and idli. Avoid fried food, very spicy curries, sugary drinks, coffee and alcohol until your stools firm up.

You can get a day-by-day version of this, with portions for your body size and food style, from our free diarrhoea diet plan. It starts with two bland days, moves to gentle foods, and then back to normal meals. This guide explains the reasons behind each step.

This guide is for adults with a short bout of diarrhoea, the kind that comes from a stomach bug or something you ate. Babies and children need ORS, zinc and a doctor's advice, and long-lasting diarrhoea needs a proper check-up.

Why is ORS more important than food at first?

Diarrhoea doesn't only lose water. It also drains salts, mainly sodium and potassium, that your body needs to keep fluid where it belongs. The World Health Organization calls dehydration the most serious effect of diarrhoea, and ORS is the treatment it recommends.

ORS works because it contains a carefully balanced mix of salt and glucose. Together they pull water from the gut back into the body far better than plain water does. Fruit juice, cola and sweet sports drinks have far too much sugar and too little salt, and the extra sugar can draw more water into the gut and make things worse.

How to use ORS well:

• Buy sachets from a pharmacy and mix each one with exactly the amount of safe water printed on the packet (boiled and cooled, or bottled).
• Sip slowly and often. Small sips stay down better if you feel sick.
• Aim for about a cup (200–400 ml) after each loose stool, on top of your normal drinks.
• Make a fresh batch every 24 hours.
• Only make homemade ORS if you truly can't get sachets, and follow a trusted recipe exactly. Too much salt or sugar is harmful.

Water, thin daal water, clear soups and coconut water are good extra fluids. Pale-yellow urine is the simplest sign that you're drinking enough.

Should I stop eating when I have diarrhoea?

No. The NHS and WHO both advise eating as soon as you feel able. Starving the gut doesn't make diarrhoea stop sooner, and food gives the lining of your intestine the energy it needs to repair itself. What changes is the kind of food and the portion size: small, plain meals every few hours.

What should I eat on days 1 and 2?

Choose soft, plain foods that are low in fat and spice:

Food type	South Asian choices	Western choices
Starches	Khichdi, plain rice, rice kanji, soft idli, phulka roti	White toast, plain pasta, oats cooked in water, rice
Protein	Thin moong daal, a boiled egg	Boiled egg, steamed white fish, chicken and rice soup
Fruit and veg	Ripe banana, boiled potato, boiled lauki or carrot	Banana, stewed apple, mashed potato, boiled carrots
Dairy	Plain dahi, chaas in small glasses	Plain live yogurt
Drinks	ORS, daal water, coconut water, weak black tea	ORS, water, clear broth

Plain dahi or yogurt with live cultures is usually well tolerated. Large glasses of milk can be harder to digest for a few days, so keep milk to a splash in tea or porridge.

What should I avoid while I have diarrhoea?

• Sugary drinks and juice as your main fluid. Use ORS and water instead.
• Fried, fatty and creamy food: parathas with ghee, pakoras, samosas, chips, takeaways and creamy sauces.
• Very spicy food: chilli-heavy curries, achaar and hot sauces.
• Coffee, strong chai and energy drinks, which can speed up the gut.
• Alcohol, which dehydrates you further.
• Sugar-free sweets and gum with sorbitol, xylitol or mannitol, which have a laxative effect.
• Lots of bran, raw salad and beans until your stools firm up. You'll add them back soon.
• Street food, raw or undercooked meat and eggs, and unpasteurised milk, which can carry more germs.

What does a sample recovery day look like?

A sample day 1 for an adult, with portions to adjust to your appetite:

• Morning: ORS on waking. Oats cooked in water with half a mashed banana, or rice kanji with a spoon of dahi.
• Mid-morning: a ripe banana, plus ORS after any loose stool.
• Lunch: a small bowl of khichdi (about 1 cup) with 2–3 tablespoons of plain dahi, or chicken and rice soup.
• Afternoon: 4 plain crackers or a stewed apple, with coconut water or water.
• Dinner: soft white rice with thin moong daal and a boiled potato, or steamed white fish with rice and boiled carrots.
• Evening: a small bowl of plain dahi, and ORS as needed.

On days 3 and 4, most people can add cooked vegetables, eggs, chicken and a little more fruit, still keeping meals mild. By the end of the week, if your stools are normal, go back to your usual healthy meals and build fibre up again to 25–30 g a day. If you want to check how balanced those meals are, the food calorie and fibre checker can help.

When is diarrhoea a reason to see a doctor?

See a doctor urgently, or go to urgent care, if you have:

• signs of dehydration: very little or dark urine, dizziness, a dry mouth, confusion or a racing heart;
• blood or mucus in your stool, or black, tarry stool;
• a high fever, severe or constant belly pain, or vomiting that stops you keeping fluids down;
• diarrhoea lasting more than 2 days (more than 24 hours if you're older or frail), or that keeps coming back.

Also contact a doctor early if you're pregnant, have diabetes, kidney disease or a weak immune system, have just come back from abroad, or recently took antibiotics. Never give adult anti-diarrhoea medicines to children.

What else helps you recover and protect others?

• Wash your hands with soap after the toilet and before handling food.
• Don't prepare food for others while you're ill and for 48 hours after the last episode, if you can avoid it.
• Rest. Your body is working hard to replace fluid.
• If diarrhoea keeps coming back after meals, the problem may not be a stomach bug. Ask your doctor about tests, and look at the blood test report checker to understand any results you get.

Diarrhoea usually settles within a few days with fluids, rest and simple food. Use the diarrhoea diet plan to turn these steps into meals for the week, and see a doctor whenever the warning signs above appear. If you also have an anal fissure, which loose stools can irritate, read our guide to the anal fissure diet for when you've recovered.

This guide is general information from public health guidance, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan.